The  Reflections  of 
a  Married  Man 


By  the  Same  Author 

FACE  TO  FACE.    I2mo,  paper,  50  cents 
cloth,  $1.25 


T 


he    Reflections   of 
a    Married    Man 


By 
Robert    Grant 


Charles   Scribner's  Sons 
New  York  :^^   1892 


Copyright,  1892,  by 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons 


TROW  DIRECTORY 
PRINTING  AND   BOOKBINDING  CON 
NEW  YORK 


THE    REFLECTIONS    OF   A 
MARRIED    MAN 


WHEN  a  man  of  thirty-five  is  happily, 
blissfully  married,  the  scope  of  his 
reflections  is  necessarily  limited.  Owing  to 
the  circumstance  that  he  is  a  husband  and  a 
father,  many  questions  which  used  to  occupy 
and  agitate  his  mental  faculties  have  been  dis 
missed  or  solved.  He  is  no  longer  haunted  by 
the  face  of  every  pretty  girl  he  meets,  for  he 
has  already  met  the  woman  most  fitted  in  the 
wide  world  to  make  him  happy;  and  conse 
quently  all  the  cobwebs  of  cogitation  concern 
ing  love  which  were  wont  alternately  to  exalt 
and  depress  his  spirit  as  a  single-man,  have 
been  swept  from  his  brain.  He  is  no  longer 
prone  to  dreams  about  the  object  of  his  affec 
tions,  for  he  has  her  perpetually  beside  him, 


4:  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

nor  is  he  tempted  to  indulge  in  hyperbole  as 
to  what  he  would  do  and  dare  at  her  bidding, 
seeing  that  her  bidding  has  now  become  his. 

Analogously,  he  has  dismissed  as  impracti 
cable  certain  picturesque  visions  regarding  his 
future  which  he  had  long  entertained  and  kept 
in  reserve  in  the  secret  places  of  his  soul,  to  be 
acted  upon  under  stress  of  circumstances.  How 
often  has  he  comforted  himself,  in  moments  of 
desolation,  with  the  consciousness  that  if  mat 
ters  went  too  much  awry  he  had  merely  to  pack 
his  portmanteau  and  start  east,  west,  north  or 
south  in  search  of  glory  and  adventure !  He  has 
jubilantly  pictured  himself  a  cow-boy  snatch 
ing  a  splendid  bride  from  the  awful  waves  of  a 
prairie  fire  ;  a  conductor  in  a.  strange  city  work 
ing  his  way  from  the  platform  of  a  horse-car  to 
the  chief  magistracy  of  a  nation  ;  a  leader  into 
the  light  of  countless  hordes,  fascinated  at  first 
by  the  swathe  of  his  sword,  and  later  by  his 
counsel ;  or  a  primitive  forest-dweller,  unham 
pered  by  clothes  or  codes,  rearing  a  dusky  race 
cheek  by  jowl  with  nature.  He  has  many  a 
time  quivered  at  the  thought  of  how  he  would 
be  able  to  bestow,  from  the  summit  of  his  maj 
esty  or  his  independence,  kindly  yet  contemptu 
ous  condescension  on  the  associates  of  his  early 


A  MARRIED  MAN  5 

days  who  had  failed  to  recognize  his  superior 
ity.  But  these  are  bygone  fancies.  So  far 
from  becoming  a  cow-boy,  or  a  satrap,  or  the 
President  of  the  Republic,  or  a  billionaire,  or  a 
bushman,  he  has  reconciled  himself  to  the  idea 
of  plodding  along  in  a  rut  at  home,  unillumined 
even  by  the  hope  of  stopping  a  runaway  horse. 
With  the  consciousness  of  the  mortgage  on  his 
little  house  fresh  in  mind,  and  the  prospect  of 
a  larger  family  staring  him  in  the  face,  he 
recognizes  that  the  chances  are  against  his  ever 
seeing  an  ostrich  farm  or  a  dance  of  dervishes, 
and  that  he  may  thank  his  lucky  stars  if,  after 
ten  years  of  toil,  he  gets  away  for  a  flying  trip 
to  Japan  by  way  of  the  Yosemite. 

In  other  words,  he  has  become  a  fixture ; 
part  and  parcel  of  his  own  environment,  and 
hopelessly  entangled  with  the  butcher,  the 
baker,  the  candlestick-maker,  the  plumber,  the 
school-teacher,  the  physician,  and  the  clergy 
man.  Instead  of  speculating  as  to  whether 
one  would  rather  love  or  be  loved,  he  is  likely 
now,  in  odd  moments,  to  be  wondering  whether 
the  languidness  of  baby  may  not  be  due  to  the 
presence  of  arsenic  in  the  wall-paper,  or  croon 
ing  over  the  quarterly  bill  of  his  family  for 
boots  and  shoes.  The  world  has  become  for 


6  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

him,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  commu 
nity  in  which  he  lives,  with  its  hopes,  its  ambi 
tions,  its  aspirations,  its  foibles,  its  idiosyncra 
sies,  and  its  crazes. 

I  occupy  a  modest  establishment  in  that  por 
tion  of  the  city  where  people  take  daily  baths, 
do  not  use  the  blade  of  the  knife  in  order  to 
convey  food  to  the  mouth,  and  drink  tea  from  a 
cup  in  preference  to  a  saucer.  In  a  republic, 
where  everyone  is  the  peer  of  everybody  else, 
one  cannot  be  too  careful  what  one  says  in  order 
to  avoid  giving  offence.  In  our  neighborhood 
the  husband  and  father  who  is  able  to  bring  up 
a  family  on  an  annual  income  of  fifteen  hun 
dred  dollars,  and  lay  up  money  into  the  bar 
gain,  is  not  to  be  found  ;  nor  is  the  wife  and 
mother  who  is  able  to  provide  for  seventy-five 
cents,  according  to  those  marvellous  bills  of 
fare  we  see  in  the  newspapers,  a  dinner  which 
begins  with  raw  oysters,  includes  soup,  fish, 
an  entree,  and  a  joint,  and  concludes  with  pud- 
ing,  fruit,  and  coffee.  Consequently  I  am 
obliged  to  earn  an  income  larger  considerably 
than  the  sum  I  have  referred  to,  and  although 
our  repasts  ordinarily  lack  fifty  per  cent,  of  the 
delicacies  enumerated,  I  have  noticed  that  on 
the  first  of  every  month  my  wife  is  apt  to  look 


A  MARRIED  MAN  7 

as  if  she  were  going  to  cry,  even  if  she  has 
self-control  enough  not  to. 

I  have  read  somewhere — it  may  have  been  in 
an  electric  car— that  500,000,000  of  the  world's 
population  clothe  the  entire  person,  700,000,- 
000  wear  more  or  less  clothing,  and  250,000,- 

000  wear  absolutely  nothing.     Had  I  been  born 
in  Timbuctoo,  what  would  have  been  my  des 
tiny  ?     The  answer  is  far  to  seek  ;  but   it  is 
irksome  to  the  spirit  at  times  to  contrast  the 
simple  conditions  of  primitive  man  with  the 
complex  necessities  of  a  highly  civilized  house 
hold.     Given  an  adobe  hut,  a  canoe,  a  bow  and 
arrows,  a  fig-leaf,  a  pipe,  and  a  string  of  beads, 
what  does  the  most  fastidious  savage  lack  ?    As 
regards  butcher's  bills,  traps  against  sewer-gas, 
the  telephone,  ball-dresses,  electric  light,  pri 
vate   theatricals,  and    Christian    Science,    his 
mind  is  a  complete  blank. 

When  Josephine  and  I  were  about  to  begin 
housekeeping,  she  confided  to  me  one  evening 
that  we  should  need  only  one  servant.  "\Vhilo 

1  was  pondering  the  matter  in  silence  she  con 
tinued,  with  plaintive  earnestness  : 

"  We  shall  really  be  able  to  manage  perfect 
ly  well,  Fred ;  I  have  thought  it  all  out.  I  will 
wash  the  breakfast  things  myself,  and  dust  th<« 


RA 

TTTK 

"RSITY 


8  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

drawing-room  and  cut  the  vegetables  on  the 
days  the  girl  has  to  wash  and  iron.  And  then 
once  a  fortnight  we  might  have  in  a  scrub 
bing  woman  for  half  a  day." 

I  frowned  majestically,  revolting  at  the  vision 
of  my  Josephine's  dainty  fingers  dallying  with 
a  mop  or  intimately  associated  with  potato- 
skins  and  pea -pods.  In  her  mother's  house 
she  had  been  waited  upon  by  inches  all  her 
days. 

"  I  will  have  nothing  of  the  sort,  Josephine. 
I  do  not  wish  my  wife  to  make  a  slave  of  her 
self.  We  must  have  as  many  servants  as  are 
necessary  to  do  the  work." 

Josephine  sighed  and  clasped  her  hands. 
"  How  generous  you  are,  Fred  !  We  couldn't 
possibly  require  more  than  two  under  any  con 
sideration.  I  heard  of  two  girls  to-day  who 
would  do  capitally  for  us  if  you  really  think  we 
can  afford  it.  They  are  sisters." 

If  I  live  to  be  a  hundred,  I  shall  never  forget 
the  attractive  picture  which  those  sisters  pres 
ented  when  I  saw  them  for  the  first  time,  a  fort 
night  later,  on  my  return  from  our  wedding 
journey.  We  had  come  back  a  day  sooner  than 
we  had  expected,  and  we  found  them  seated  on 
the  carpet  in  the  centre  of  the  drawing-room, 


A  MARRIED  MAN  9 

busily  engaged  in  burnishing  a  number  of  crys 
tal  pendents  belonging  to  the  chandelier,  and  as 
they  looked  up  beamingly  on  our  approach,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  our  domestic  comfort  was 
assured  for  years.  They  were  both  of  buxom, 
sturdy  physique.  Delia,  the  elder,  who  was  to 
cook  for  us  and  do  part  of  the  washing,  had  a 
firm,  honest  countenance  which  was  itself  a 
guaranty  that  there  would  be  neither  waste  nor 
pilfering  below  stairs.  Mary  Ann,  the  second 
girl,  as  I  was  instructed  to  speak  of  her,  was  of  a 
more  yielding  type,  a  mild-eyed,  dimpled,  good- 
humored-looking  woman,  whose  smile  suggested 
willingness  to  oblige  to  the  last  gasp.  She  was 
to  do  the  remainder  of  the  washing,  tend  table, 
dust  and  sweep,  take  care  of  the  rooms,  and 
make  herself  generally  useful  to  her  sister  and 
to  Josephine. 

"Aren't  they  lovely?"  whispered  my  dar 
ling  to  me  on  our  way  upstairs  ;  and  when  we 
were  within  the  privacy  of  our  chamber  she 
flung  her  arms  about  my  neck  and  proceeded  to 
expatiate  exuberantly  on  our  rare  good  fortune 
in  having  acquired  two  such  treasures.  Had 
she  not  many  a  time  heard  her  mother  declare 
that  friction  in  the  kitchen  was  the  bane  of 
domestic  happiness  ?  There  could  be  none  be- 


10  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

tween  sisters.  They  would  work  side  by  side 
in  perfect  accord,  each  helping  the  other. 

For  a  month  everything  went  more  than 
smoothly.  Delia's  bread  and  pastry  were  so 
light  and  appetizing  that  I  was  never  once 
tempted  to  make  invidious  comparisons  be 
tween  them  and  those  which  my  mother  used 
to  provide,  so  that  Josephine's  somewhat  pallid 
cheeks  grew  rosy  from  sheer  delight  at  rny  con 
tent.  Nor  was  our  second  girl  less  satisfactory 
in  her  sphere.  Although  everything  in  the 
house  was  brand  new,  she  broke  nothing  except 
a  vase  in  the  drawing-room  which  we  both  cor 
dially  detested,  and  which  had  been  suffered  to 
figure  as  an  ornament  merely  out  of  considera 
tion  for  the  dear  friend  who  had  given  it  to  us 
as  a  wedding  present.  But  Mary  Ann  could 
not  have  shown  more  genuine  contrition  had  it 
been  of  Satsuma.  Accosting  her  mistress  with 
tears  in  her  eyes  and  the  pieces  in  her  apron, 
she  confessed  frankly  that  she  had  switched  it 
from  the  table  with  her  skirt,  instead  of  main 
taining  that  it  "broke  itself,"  and  begged  to  be 
allowed  to  replace  it  by  a  rebate  in  her  wages. 

"  It  made  me  feel  positively  wicked,"  said 
Josephine,  "  to  see  her  feel  so  badly,  and  to  be 
conscious  all  the  time  that  I  was  thankful  it 


A  MARRIED  MAN  11 

was  smashed,  and  that  my  only  fear  was  we 
might  be  able  to  glue  it." 

Exemplary  Mary  Ann  !  She  used  to  call  me 
in  the  morning  punctually  to  a  minute,  and 
fold  my  trousers  as  accurately  as  a  valet,  and 
never  once  during  her  incumbency  did  my  dar 
ling,  in  passing  her  fingers  over  the  plush  fur 
niture  in  the  drawing-room,  discover  dust. 

It  dawned  upon  me  one  day  that  Mary  Ann 
was  a  changed  being.  Instead  of  going  about 
her  work  with  a  light-hearted  smile  which  found 
vent  at  times,  when  she  was  at  a  respectful  dis 
tance,  in  the  snatches  of  a  song,  she  had  become 
moping  and  dejected.  When  I  asked  her  one 
day  for  a  fresh  towel,  I  observed,  while  taking 
it  from  her  through  a  crack  of  the  bath-room 
door,  that  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes. 

"Have  you  noticed  Mary  Ann,  my  dear?" 
I  asked  my  wife,  at  the  first  opportunity. 
"  She  has  something  on  her  mind." 

Josephine  nodded,  and  I  perceived  that  she 
herself  was  in  a  melancholy  mood.  "  I  knew 
it  was  too  perfect  to  last,"  she  murmured. 

"What  is  the  matter?" 

"  I  haven't  the  least  idea,  Fred ;  I  have  re 
frained  from  asking  in  order  to  put  off  the  evil 
day  as  long  as  possible,  but  I  have  felt  in  my 


12  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

bones  for  the  past  week  that  we  were  walking 
over  a  volcano.  I  might  have  known  it  could 
not  last." 

"  Pooh  !  "  I  answered.  "  You  take  the  mat 
ter  altogether  too  seriously,  my  dear.  Mary 
Ann  and  her  young  man  have  probably  had  a 
falling  out — that  is  all." 

Josephine  looked  incredulous.  The  next 
day,  when  I  returned  home  from  down-town,  I 
found  her  sitting  limp  and  doleful  on  the  sofa. 

"  Oh,  Fred,"  she  exclaimed,  as  I  entered  the 
room,  "Delia  is  going." 

"  Delia  ?     You  mean  Mary  Ann." 

"  I  mean  Delia,  Fred." 

"  What  in  thunder — "  I  began,  but  I  was  in 
terrupted  by  the  opening  of  a  door  behind  me. 

"  Please,  ma'am,  may  I  say  a  word  to  you  ?  " 

It  Avas  our  second  girl,  the  picture  of  dejec 
tion,  with  her  handkerchief  to  her  eyes. 

"  What  is  it,  Mary  Ann?  "  said  my  wife,  with 
a  touch  of  tartness  unusual  to  her. 

"  Please,  ma'am,  since  Delia  is  going  I  must 
go  too." 

Josephine  gave  a  gasp.  "  Go  because  Delia 
is  going  ?  " 

"  Yes,  ma'am.     She  is  my  sister,  you  know." 

"But  it  is  because  she  ill-treated  you  that 


A  MARRIED  MAN  13 

she  is  going.  You  said  that  she  had  been  cruel 
to  you,  and  I  remonstrated  with  her,  and  she 
said  that  she  would  not  stay.  And  now  you, 
on  whose  account  she  is  leaving  us,  come  and 
tell  me  that  you  are  going  too.  What  do  you 
mean,  Mary  Ann  ?  " 

"  Yes,  ma'am,"  said  the  treasure,  with  a  con 
vulsive  sob.  "We  came  together  and  we  must 
go  together." 

"  You  cannot  go,  Mary  Ann." 

I  saw  my  wife  really  angry  for  the  first  time 
since  I  had  known  her,  and  I  interposed  with 
masculine  gruffness. 

"  Wliat  is  all  this  nonsense,  Mary  Ann,  about 
your  going  and  Delia's  going  ?  You  will  both 
of  you  stay,  of  course." 

u  She  told  me  this  morning,"  burst  out  Jo 
sephine,  indignantly,  "that  her  sister  had  cru 
elly  maltreated  her  ever  since  they  had  been 
here,  and  that  she  was  very  unhappy.  And, 
Fred,  I  went  down  into  the  kitchen  to  speak  to 
Delia  about  it,  and  Delia  said  that  she  wished 
to  go  at  once." 

"  She  went,  sir,  just  before  I  came  up  the 
stairs." 

Josephine  gave  another  gasp. 

"  Well,  then,  what  more  do  you  wish,  Mary 


14     REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN 

Ann  ?  "  I  said.  "  If  your  sister  has  gone,  you 
have  nothing  to  complain  of,  so  back  to  your 
work." 

She  shook  her  head  mournfully  and  answered 
slowly,  while  she  mopped  her  streaming  eyes, 
"  She  was  my  own  sister,  sir,  but  she  was  that 
cruel  to  me  that  I  couldn't  have  lived  in  the 
house  with  her  another  day.  And  I've  no  word 
of  complaint  to  speak  against  you,  sir,  or  your 
lady.  But  if  Delia's  gone  I  can't  stay.  We 
came  together  and  we  must  go  together." 

And  she  went. 


II. 


AS  I  was  saying,  we  began  our  housekeeping 
with  two  servants.  When  baby  came 
and  the  monthly  nurse  was  on  the  eve  of  de 
parture,  Josephine  spoke  of  the  necessity  of  a 
third.  We  had  at  this  time  a  cook  and  second 
girl  who  were  not  even  distantly  related,  and 
though  our  bread  did  not  seem  to  me  equal  to 
that  to  which  I  had  been  accustomed  as  a  boy, 
and  articles  to  which  we  were  attached  "  broke 
themselves  "  from  day  to  day,  we  were  tolera 
bly  comfortable. 

I  was  brute  enough  to  inquire  nonchalantly 
why  the  second  girl  could  not  tend  baby.  Let 
me  add,  in  my  own  behalf,  that  this  was  just 
after  the  judge  had  directed  a  verdict  for  the 
defendant  in  a  big  accident  case  which  I  had 
brought  for  an  impecunious  client,  who  had 
lost  a  leg,  against  a  rich  corporation. 

"  Cornelia  tend  baby  ?  How  could  she  ?  " 
my  wife  replied,  with  so  much  horror  in  her 


16  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

tone,  that  remembering  the  doctor's  injunction 
that  she  should  be  agitated  as  little  as  possible, 
I  hastened  to  add,  "  If  she  can't,  she  can't,  and 
there's  an  end  of  it." 

Josephine  dropped  the  subject  for  thirty-six 
hours.  She  chose  as  a  time  for  taking  it  up 
again,  the  middle  of  the  night,  when  I  had 
happened  to  wake  up  for  a  moment. 

"You  would  never  be  willing  to  live  so, 
Fred,"  she  began,  suddenly. 

"  Live  how,  my  dear  ?  "  I  asked,  at  a  loss  as 
to  the  connection. 

"  Why,  with  two  servants,  of  course.  Haven't 
you  been  asking  me  why  Cornelia  could  not 
tend  baby  in  addition  to  doing  all  her  other 
work?" 

Now,  I  was  infernally  sleepy  to  begin  with, 
and  in  the  second  place  I  did  not  like  the 
insinuation  contained  in  Josephine's  opening 
sentence;  so  I  murmured  a  little  doggedly, 
"  How  do  other  people  live  ?  " 

"  I  should  just  like  to  see  you  living  like  other 
people,"  she  answered,  with  a  vicious  dab  at 
her  pillow.  "  I  should  just  like  to  see  you." 

"  How  does  Harry  Bolles  manage  ?  "  I  con 
tinued.  "He  has  twins,  and  he  keeps  only 
two  servants." 


A  MARRIED  M .\ ^  17 

I  ought  to  have  known  better  than  refer  t<> 
Harry  Bolles  at  this  time  of  the  night,  because 
if  there  was  one  thing  more  than  another  cal 
culated  to  arouse  the  indignation  of  my  wife, 
it  was  the  trick  I  had — she  called  it  a  trick — of 
citing  the  Bolleses  as  an  argument  on  every 
possible  occasion. 

"  That  just  shows  how  much  you  know," 
Josephine  replied,  slowly,  between  her  teeth. 
"  You  would  not  live  as  Harry  Bolles  lives  for 
twenty-four  hours." 

I  was  thoroughly  awake  myself  now,  and 
rather  mad,  so  I  ventured  boldly  on  the  asser 
tion  that,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  the  Bolleses 
got  along  very  well. 

"  Now  it  happens,  Fred,  that  I  called  on 
Mrs.  Bolles  yesterday,"  said  my  wrife,  in  a  key 
of  scornful  triumph,  "  and  it  happens  that  she 
confided  to  me  how  they  do  live.  One  of  their 
servants  is  a  maid  of  all  work,  and  the  nurse 
divides  her  time  between  taking  care  of  the 
twins  and  assisting  her ;  and  when  she  is 
assisting  the  other  girl  or  waiting  on  table, 
Mrs.  Bolles  has  to  take  care  of  the  twins,  and 
she  looks  dragged  out,  poor  thing,  in  conse 
quence  ;  and  the  twins  sleep  in  her  room,  and 
they  are  very  wakeful,  for  they  are  teething, 
2 


18  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

and  she  told  me  that  the  other  iiight  her  hus 
band  had  to  walk  up  and  down  with  one,  and 
she  with  the  other,  from  twelve  until  three." 

"  Where  was  the  nurse  ?  "  I  inquired,  loftily. 

"  How  just  like  a  man  to  ask  '  where  was  the 
nurse  ?  '  I  should  be  glad  to  know  how  you 
can  expect  a  girl  who  does  half  of  the  work  of 
a  house  in  addition  to  taking  charge  all  day  of 
two  helpless  infants,  one  year  and  a  half  old, 
to  lose  her  night's  rest  into  the  bargain.  The 
nurse  was  in  bed  asleep,  of  course.  Moreover, 
Mrs.  Bolles  told  me  that  Harry  looks  after  the 
furnace  himself.  I  should  like  to  see  you 
raking  out  the  ashes  and  shovelling  in  the  coal 
every  morning." 

"Pooh!"  I  answered.  "It  would  be  fun 
rather  than  otherwise,  if  it  were  necessary." 

"  Necessary  ?  That's  just  it.  I  suppose  that 
I  could  manage  to  get  along  without  a  nurse, 
if  it  were  necessary ;  only  I  will  be  honest,  Fred, 
and  acknowledge  that  it  would  not  be  fun." 

"I  wish  you  would  let  me  go  to  sleep, 
Josephine,"  I  remarked  at  this  juncture.  "  Do 
you  realize  what  o'clock  it  is  ?  A  man  who  has 
to  work  as  hard  as  I  do  all  day  can  scarcely  be 
expected  to  lose  his  night's 'rest  into  the  bar 
gain." 


A  MARRIED  MAN  19 

Having  covered  my  defeat  by  means  of  this 
adroit  shot  I  lay  awake  for  half  an  hour  longer, 
absorbed  in  reverie.  As  indeed  I  had  been 
well  aware  from  the  beginning,  my  wife  was 
right  about  the  Bolleses  ;  I  would  not  be  will 
ing  to  live  as  they  did  for  twenty-four  hours. 
I  shuddered  and  drew  the  sheet  over  my  head 
as  I  pictured  myself  in  overalls,  wrestling 
daily  with  the  intricacies  of  the  furnace  and 
trying  to  make  the  world  believe  that  I  did  it 
for  the  sake  of  the  exercise.  How  pleasant,  on 
a  cold  winter's  night,  when  you  had  just  fin 
ished  dressing  to  go  out  to  dinner  and  were 
taking  a  little  pride  in  your  fieckless  shirt- 
bosom,  would  be  the  news  that  the  furnace  fire 
had  gone  out,  involving  the  alternative  that 
you  should  rekindle  it  or  imperil  the  lives  of 
your  offspring !  And  if  I  shuddered  on  my 
own  account,  I  shuddered  tenfold  more  on 
account  of  Josephine,  beholding  as  plainly  as 
could  be  in  my  mind's  eye,  athwart  the  dark 
ness,  my  darling  pacing  the  chamber  in  her 
wrapper  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning, 
soothing  her  baby  in  order  that  I  might  sleep ; 
for  that  is  what  Josephine  would  be  likely  to 
do,  being  a  woman  cast  in  a  less  selfish  mould 
than  the  rest  of  her  sex.  Indeed,  so  deeply 


20  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

was  I  distressed  by  the  pathos  of  this  situa 
tion  that  in  the  morning,  of  my  own  volition, 
I  remarked,  in  a  brisk,  off-hand  fashion  : 

"  If  you're  going  to  engage  a  nurse,  my  dear, 
be  sure  you  get  a  good  one.  If  you  see  the 
woman  you  like,  don't  haggle  about  wages." 

My  wife  was  silent  for  an  instant,  then  she 
smiled  to  herself  in  a  peculiar  way  she  has  and 
said,  "  How  queer  you  are,  Fred  !  One  mo 
ment  you  put  me  in  the  dumps  by  talking  as 
if  we  were  on  the  verge  of  the  poor-house, 
and  the  next  one  would  suppose  from  your 
grandiloquent  style  that  we  were  rolling  in 
riches." 

"  Scarcely,  my  dear,"  I  answered ;  "  but  I 
fail  to  see  the  advantage  of  making  one's  self 
uncomfortable  for  a  paltry  twenty-five  or  fifty 
dollars  a  year.  That  is  a  woman's  idea  of 
economy." 

"  I  have  noticed,  though,  all  the  same,  that 
on  the  occasions  when  I  have  to  ask  you  for 
money,  you  do  not  act  as  though  you  thought 
even  half  that  sum  paltry.  I  shall  remind  you 
of  it  the  next  time  you  dole  me  out  a  pitiful 
five-dollar  bill,"  said  the  angel  of  my  life,  tem 
pering  the  irony  of  her  words  by  a  sportive 
smile  and  an  evident  disposition  to  embrace 


A   MARRIED  MAN  21 

me  —  from  which  she  was  deterred  only  by 
the  fact  that  my  cheeks  were  covered  with 
lather. 

How  often  have  we  enacted  a  more  or  less 
similar  bit  of  private  theatricals  in  the  course 
of  our  gradual  transition  from  the  domestic 
simplicity  represented  by  two  incumbents  in 
the  kitchen,  to  the  numbers  and  circumstance 
of  the  household  of  a  modern  family  man  !  As 
the  consequence  of  my  reluctance,  not  merely 
to  renounce  clothes  like  to  him  of  Timbuctoo, 
but  to  care  for  the  f uniace  after  the  pattern  of 
Harry  Bolles,  I  find  myself  to-day  the  presid 
ing  genius  of  a  retinue  which  includes,  besides 
the  four  children  who  call  me  father,  a  cook 
and  a  nurse  and  a  parlor-maid  and  a  laundress 
and  a  chore-man,  whose  united  efforts  to  do  the 
work  of  the  household  are  not  entirely  able  to 
conceal  from  me  the  possibility  that  I  may  be 
cozened  at  no  distant  day  into  adding  to  their 
number  a  kitchen-girl,  a  coachman,  and  another 
nurse.  And  yet  there  are  individuals  who  look 
askance  at  me  as  unimaginative,  because  under 
pressure  of  the  consciousness  that  so  much 
flesh  and  blood  is  dependent  upon  me  for  daily 
bread,  I  walk  fearlessly  under  a  ladder,  am  will 
ing  to  move  to  the  sea-side  on  Friday,  and  sit 


22  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

down  at  table  without  ado  in  a  company  of  thir 
teen. 

In  the  crush  of  modern  civilization  he  who 
wishes  to  arrive  must  frequently  walk  under  a 
ladder,  will  he,  nill  he ;  and  analogously,  it  does 
not  take  a  married  man  long  to  discover  the 
limitations  imposed  upon  his  fancy  by  his  re 
sponsibilities  as  husband,  father,  and  master. 
Although  I  have  never  encountered  a  ghost, 
there  was  a  time  when  I  enjoyed  listening  to 
the  blood-curdling  experiences  of  those  who 
thought  they  had,  and  I  was  altogether  willing 
to  ponder  the  arguments  of  those  who  main 
tained  that  Bacon  wrote  Shakespeare.  But  to 
day  I  find  myself  in  such  a  frame  of  mind 
regarding  the  unseen  world,  that  I  should  like 
nothing  better  than  to  see  a  ghost,  in  order  to 
be  able  to  sine  my  boot-jack  at  it  to  prove  my 
incredulity ;  and  I  am  sorely  tempted,  when 
interrogated  as  to  the  authorship  of  Hamlet, 
to  inquire  what  difference  it  makes  any  way. 
Would  not  Hamlet  still  be  Hamlet,  and  Othello, 
Othello,  whether  they  were  written  by  Shake 
speare  or  by  Bacon  ? 

The  reason  for  this  frame  of  mind  is  evident 
enough.  Before  a  married  man,  in  the  fulness 
of  his  responsibilities  as  a  paterfamilias,  leaves 


A  MARRIED  MAN  23 

the  house  in  the  morning,  he  is  likely  to  hoar 
11  nit  tin-re  is  more  coal  needed,  that  there  is  a 
Irak  in  the  roof,  or  that  one  of  the  children  has 
swallowed  a  cent.  His  wife  rushes  after  him 
and  hails  him  at  the  foot  of  the  door-steps  to 
tell  him  that  there  is  not  a  bar  of  soap  in  the 
house,  and  to  be  sure  and  bring  home  some 
money  for  the  sewing- woman.  Provided  he  has  a 
telephone  both  at  home  and  down-town,  she  d<  >os 
not  need  to  send  the  chore-man  to  his  office  with 
the  intelligence  that  not  a  drop  of  water  will 
run  in  the  house,  for  she  is  able  to  ring  him  up 
and  to  let  him  know  at  the  same  time  that  she 
fears  she  may  have  given  awray  by  mistake  the 
wrong  suit  of  his  clothes  to  the  chambermaid's 
brother  just  out  from  Sweden.  "When  he  ar 
rives  home  at  night  he  expects  to  hear  that 
the  laundress  is  utterly  dissatisfied  with  the 
accommodations  in  the  laundry,  that  his  golden- 
haired  daughter  has  dropped  a  doll  down  the 
drain-pipe,  or  that  moths  have  honeycombed 
his  riding  trousers.  After  dinner,  if  there  is 
no  smell  of  gas  which  obliges  him  to  -ascend  a 
step-ladder  and  press  his  nose  against  thr 
chandelier  in  search  of  a  leak,  he  is  haply 
called  upon  to  consider,  for  the  benefit  of  tho 
rising  generation,  whether  Jonah's  sojourn  in 


24  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

the  belly  of  the  whale  can  be  reconciled  with 
the  laws  of  natural  science,  or  if  it  is  advisable 
to  allow  his  eldest  son,  aged  seven,  to  hang  on 
behind  "  Booby  huts."  Then  like  as  not,  after 
he  has  gone  to  bed  and  is  just  dropping  off  to 
sleep,  his  better  half  will  nudge  him  to  inquire 
if  he  lias  brought  home  that  money  for  the  sew 
ing-woman.  Then  there  are  the  bills  from 
the  butcher  and  the  grocer  and  the  milkman 
to  absorb  his  attention  on  the  first  of  every 
month,  and  from  the  plumber  and  the  dress 
maker  and  the  gas  company  at  the  begin 
ning  of  every  quarter,  and  from  the  tax- 
collector,  the  ice-man,  and  the  dancing-school 
teacher  at  periods  when  they  are  the  least  wel 
come.  Though  he  "remembers"  substantially 
on  Christmas  day  everyone  who  has  the 
slightest  claim  on  his  bounty,  from  his  wife's 
mother  to  the  letter  carrier  and  the  elevator 
boy  down-town,  he  is  certain  to  be  lured  from 
the  dinner-table  half  a  dozen  times  during  the 
month  of  January  by  the  mysterious  whisper 
of  the  house-maid  that  there  is  "a  gentleman  " 
waiting  to  see  him  in  the  hall,  who  invites  him 
to  subscribe  to  the  coachman's  ball,  the  waiter's 
ball,  the  policeman's  ball,  or  the  fireman's  ball, 
as  the  case  may  be.  In  the  early  summer  he 


A   MAURI Kl)  MAN  25 

is  moved  to  the  country  or  the  sea-side,  and  in 
the  early  autumn  he  is  moved  back  again,  aiid 
during  the  interim  his  office  is  a  sort  of  receiv 
ing  bureau  for  bundles,  which  he  is  expected 
to  carry  out  to  his  family,  containing  every 
thing  from  a  single  skein  of  sewing-silk  to  a 
carboy  of  uimly/od  spring  water.  Considering 
the  multiplicity  of  these  distractions,  is  it  alto 
gether  surprising  if  he  remains  comparatively 
indinvivnt  as  to  whether  William  Tell  really 
shot  an  apple  off  his  son's  head  or  was  only  a 
mythical  humbug  V 

I  live  in  the  city  in  an  unpretentious  little 
house  which  must  be  moderately  elastic,  see 
ing  that  Josephine  confided  to  me,  after  the 
birth  of  our  first  baby,  that  if  we  ever  had 
another  we  should  have  to  move  ;  for  we  have 
two  boys  and  two  girls,  and  I  still  have  faith, 
in  spite  of  my  wife's  direct  asseveration  to  the 
contrary,  that  we  should  be  able  to  tuck  away 
a  number  five  somewhere.  We  look  out  at 
our  neighbors  over  an  infinitesimal  grass-plot 
which  is  brought  to  my  attention  conspicuous 
ly  twice  a  year,  once  when  an  itinerant  gar 
dener  calls,  about  the  time  the  snow  flies,  with 
a  bill  for  having  kept  it  in  order  for  a  twelve 
month,  and  again  in  mid-summer,  when  happen- 


26  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

ing  to  visit  the  house  to  make  sure  that  the  water- 
pipes  have  not  burst  or  thieves  taken  up  a  per 
manent  residence  during  the  absence  of  the 
family,  I  am  confronted  by  an  army  of  weeds 
almost  as  high  as  the  door-sill.  What  a  ghoul 
ish  experience  it  is,  by  the  way,  to  go  prowl 
ing  about  a  closed-up  house  from  sheer  motives 
of  domestic  prudence  and  the  expectation  of 
disagreeable  discoveries.  There  is  a  deathly 
stillness  as  you  enter,  consistent  with  the  dim 
and  stuffy  atmosphere,  which  perplexes  the 
nostrils  by  suggesting  alternately  sewer-gas, 
decomposing  mouse,  and  insect  powder.  As 
you  walk  across  the  uucarpeted  hall,  sundry 
pieces  of  furniture  detonate  like  pistol-shots  to 
the  infinite  peril  of  your  nerves,  and  it  is  only 
when  you  have  examined  the  safe  and  found  it 
unrifled  that  you  are  ready  to  believe  that  the 
establishment  has  no  inmates.  Your  wife  has 
told  you  that  in  order  to  obtain  your  gray 
trousers,  which  were  left  behind  by  mistake, 
you  have  only  to  look  in  the  top  drawer  of  her 
bureau  for  the  key  of  the  cedar  chest  and  un 
do  a  bundle  immediately  under  your  eyes  in 
the  right-hand  corner  next  the  wall,  marked 
plainly,  "  Fred's  winter  clothes."  You  fail  to 
find  any  key  in  the  top  drawer,  but  you  light 


A  MARRIED  MAN  27 

upon  three  bunches  of  keys  in  the  third,  most 
of  which  are  unlabelled.  After  trying  the  ma 
jority  of  those  without  labels  you  discover  the 
key  of  the  cedar  chest,  which  proves  to  be  un 
locked  after  all.  As  you  raise  the  lid  a  pro 
found  smell  of  camphor  pervades  the  air. 
You  gaze  blankly  at  a  wide  expanse  of  neatly 
tucked-in  sheet,  which  you  hesitate  to  disturb 
from  the  fear  lest  you  will  never  be  able  to 
tuck  it  in  again.  Kemoving  it  gingerly,  you 
behold  a  well-packed  arrangement  of  bundles. 
You  examine  the  bundle  immediately  under 
your  eyes  in  the  right-hand  corner  and  find 
there  is  no  mark  on  it ;  but  the  bundle  beside 
it  is  clearly  marked  "  my  robin's  egg  blue  tea- 
gown."  You  say  to  yourself  that  perhaps  Jo 
sephine  meant  the  left-hand  corner  next  the 
wall,  and  you  investigate,  only  to  find  a  bundle 
marked  "  baby's  winter  coat."  You  look  in 
the  right-hand  corner  away  from  the  wall  and 
in  the  left-hand  corner  away  from  the  wall, 
but  fail  to  find  what  you  are  in  search  of.  Oc 
cupying  the  middle  space  is  a  huge,  carefully 
•swathed  bundle  inscribed  "  the  drawing-room 
curtains." 

"  Dash   it  all !     Where  are  my  trousers  V  " 
you  say   to   yourself,  beginning   to    perspire 


28  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

freely  from  the  intensity  of  your  emotions. 
Regardless  of  your  wife's  strict  injunction  to 
disturb  nothing,  you  seize  upon  "  the  drawing- 
room  curtains  "  and  deposit  them  on  the  floor 
beside  you,  exposing  thereby  an  array  of  other 
bundles  over  which  your  glance  passes  fever 
ishly,  but  in  vain.  "Dash  it  all!"  you  mut 
ter  again,  and  out  come  "  my  robin's  egg  blue 
tea-gown  "  and  "  baby's  winter  coat,"  and  the 
bundles  which  bore  no  marks.  "  Dash  it  all, 
where  are  those  trousers?  "  you  repeat  with 
rising  exasperation,  and  out  come  "  the  chil 
dren's  winter  leggings,"  "Fred's  great-coat," 
"  my  velvet  skirt,"  and  "  dining-room  rug " 
higgledy-piggledy.  You  are  fuming  now,  and 
you  pitch  out  everything  right  and  left  until 
there  is  nothing  remaining  in  the  cedar  chest 
but  "  my  seal-skin  sack  "  and  "  Fred's  arctics/' 
Then  you  gaze  around  you  gloomily,  still 
dispossessed  of  the  gray  trousers,  and  not  al 
together  satisfied  with  your  handiwork.  You 
begin  to  pitch  the  things  in  again,  and  to 
squash  them  savagely  into  position.  You 
feel  furious  with  Josephine  for  having  deceived 
you.  As  you  return  each  bundle,  you  note 
superciliously  whatever  writing  there  is  on  it. 
All  of  a  sudden  you  flush,  and  a  sensation  of 


A  MARRIED  MAN  29 

shame  and  disgust  besets  the  small  of  your 
back,  and  you  find  yourself  confronted  by  the 
words,  "Fred's  winter  clothes."  You  realize, 
too,  that  the  bundle  bearing  this  inscription  is 
identical  in  size  and  shape  with  the  one  which, 
when  you  raised  the  lid  of  the  chest,  was  im 
mediately  under  your  eyes  in  the  right-hand 
corner  next  the  wall.  You  scan  it  for  a  mo 
ment  ruminantly,  examine  the  other  side  and 
proceed  to  scrutinize  two  or  three  other  bun 
dles.  You  have  guessed  the  truth,  which  is 
that  the  unmarked  side  had  happened  to  be 
uppermost  and  you  had  neglected  to  turn  the 
bundle  over.  You  undo  it  soberly,  and  there, 
sure  enough,  are  the  gray  trousers. 

After  doing  your  best  to  repack  the  cedar 
chest,  and  finding  that  you  cannot  close  the 
lid  because  of  your  inability  to  make  room  for 
"  the  drawing-room  curtains,"  you  decide  to 
leave  them  on  top  of  the  chest,  and  you  pro 
ceed  downstairs  to  inspect  the  kitchen  and 
laundry,  which  you  have  not  yet  visited.  You 
go  prowling  through  these  lower  regions,  peer 
ing  morbidly  into  coal-bins  and  wash-tubs,  and 
scanning  philosophically  the  cockroaches  dis 
porting  themselves  over  the  kitchen  range  re 
gardless  of  your  presence.  A  faint  moaning 


CTNIVERSITY 


30  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

sound  breaks  in  upon  the  prevailing  stillness, 
and  you  stand  still  to  listen  with  thumping 
heart.  It  is  repeated,  and  it  seems  to  you  to 
emanate  from  the  cellar  between  the  kitchen  in 
the  rear  and  the  laundry  in  front,  where  the 
furnace  and  the  store-closet  and  your  private 
wine -closet  are  situated.  You  step  thither, 
and  noticing  that  the  store-closet  door  is  on  the 
jar,  throw  it  open,  merely  to  encounter  silence 
and  coffee-scented  space.  As  you  stand  still 
listening,  the  moaning  sound  is  audible  again 
close  at  hand  and  more  clearly  defined,  sug 
gesting  to  your  imagination  the  throes  of  a  dy 
ing  victim.  You  say  to  yourself  that  a  murder 
must  have  been  committed  in  your  wine-closet, 
and  after  a  shaky  pause  you  resolutely  try  the 
door.  It  is  locked,  as  it  should  be.  Puzzled, 
but  none  the  less  appalled,  you  tremulously 
draw  your  keys  from  your  pocket,  and  select 
ing  the  right  one,  fit  it  to  the  lock.  You  draw 
a  deep  breath,  turn  it,  and  with  a  doughty  ef 
fort  fling  open  the  door.  For  a  moment  there 
is  a  ghastly  stillness,  and  then  forth  from 
among  the  demijohns  and  wine-cases  staggers 
the  cat — the  missing  cat  who,  as  you  now  re 
call,  was  nowhere  to  be  found  on  the  day  your 
family  moved  out  of  town,  just  seven  weeks  ago. 


A  MARRIED  MAN  31 

"  Miau— ow  !  " 

"  Poor,  poor  pussy !  " 

You  observe  with  surprise  that  though  pain 
fully  shrunken  and  emaciated,  she  still  is  dis 
posed  to  twist  herself  around  your  legs  just  as 
in  the  days  of  her  well-fed  prosperity,  and  re 
calling  the  adage  as  to  the  nine  lives  of  a  cat, 
you  wonder  how  many  of  them  she  has  left. 
She  looks  up  at  you  beseechingly,  uttering  now 
and  again  a  piteous  mew,  while  you  stand  re 
flecting  as  to  what  you  are  to  do  with  her.  By 
dint  of  rummaging  in  the  store-closet  you  find 
an  empty  basket,  into  which  you  make  sundry 
attempts  to  deposit  her,  but  with  so  little  suc 
cess  that  you  end  by  calling  in  at  a  neighbor 
ing  grocer's  and  making  an  arrangement  with 
him  for  a  pecuniary  consideration  to  capture 
her  and  feed  her  until  you  return  to  town. 
You  leave  him  your  keys  for  the  purpose,  with 
directions  to  return  them  to  your  office,  and 
you  proceed  soberly  on  your  way  down-town. 


III. 


{WAS  describing  my  house.  If  it  be  true  that 
a  man's  house  is  his  castle,  it  is  equally  so 
that  the  chief  seat  of  his  domestic  happiness  is 
his  parlor.  I  use  the  term  advisedly,  meaning 
by  parlor  the  room  in  which  his  evenings  are 
habitually  spent  and  where  he  feels  most  thor 
oughly  and  comfortably  at  home,  be  it  known 
technically  as  drawing-room,  library,  or  den. 
There  are  people  who  prefer  to  maintain  a  best 
room  for  the  entertainment  of  company,  where 
the  most  magnificently  ugly  of  their  belong 
ings  are  commonly  to  be  found,  and  in  which 
the  window-shades  are  kept  perpetually  low 
ered  in  order  to  preserve  the  carpets,  and  a  fire 
is  never  lighted  from  the  dread  of  smoke-dust. 
But  I  agree  with  Josephine  that  what  we  deem 
comfortable  is  none  too  comfortable  for  our 
friends  ;  and  as  a  consequence  we  have  partici 
pated  freely  from  the  very  first  in  our  own 
splendor. 


REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN    33 

Is  there  anything  more  attractive  to  the 
newly  married  Benedict  than  the  cosiness  of 
his  evenings  at  home,  in  the  midst  of  his 
household  gods  and  by  the  side  of  his  sweet 
partner  for  life  ?  Even  though  she  objects  to 
his  putting  his  boots  on  the  sofa  or  badgers 
him  into  wearing  a  swallow-tail  coat  at  dinner 
every  night,  is  he  not  a  thousand-fold  happier 
than  when  flitting  from  ball-room  to  theatre 
and  from  theatre  to  club  in  search  of  fever 
ish  excitement  ?  As  a  well-to-do  bachelor,  he 
may  perhaps  have  endeavored  to  banish  dirt 
by  the  witchery  of  assiduous  tipping,  and  to 
produce  the  semblance  of  connubial  comfort 
by  a  prodigal  display  of  choice  upholstery, 
rare  Japonica,  and  a  masterpiece  or  two  in  the 
line  of  contemporary  art ;  but,  except  in  mo 
ments  of  occasional  self-delusion,  he  has  ever 
been  conscious  that  his  hearth  was  alike  cheer 
less  and  dusty.  Now,  under  his  changed  con 
ditions  he  has,  if  inclined  for  conversation,  an 
ever  delightful  companion ;  if,  moody  and  ex 
hausted,  he  prefers  silence  or  a  book,  even  the 
traditional  mouse  cannot  be  stiller  than  his 
angel ;  and  is  she  not  perpetually  ready  to  play 
bezique  or  back-gammon,  or  to  read  aloud,  or 
to  listen  to  him  read  in  case  he  derives  satis- 
3 


34=  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

faction  from  his  own  performance  ?  He  sits 
in  his  easy-chair  under  the  latest  improvement 
in  lamps  and  the  latest  device  in  ornamental 
shades,  surrounded  by  tokens  from  his  friends, 
vases  and  clocks,  thermometers  and  paper-cut 
ters,  a  trio  of  etchings,  and  a  bust  of  the  young 
Augustus.  It  seems  to  him  as  though  he 
would  like  to  pass  his  evenings  forever  in  this 
paradise  with  perhaps  an  occasional  jaunt  to 
the  theatre  every  fortnight  or  so  by  way  of 
variety. 

Josephine  and  I  had  both,  as  young  people 
go,  seen  a  great  deal  of  society  before  we  be 
came  husband  and  wife.  Although  I  was 
never  bowled  over  by  anyone  so  completely  as 
by  Josephine,  there  were,  as  I  have  often  ad 
mitted  to  her,  several  young  women — say  half 
a  dozen  by  way  of  a  round  number — with 
whom  I  was  more  or  less  infatuated  during  the 
course  of  my  bachelorhood.  Consequently  I 
was  an  assiduous  attendant  at  every  form  of 
evening  festivity.  The  same  had  been  true 
substantially  of  Josephine,  who,  by  dint  of  her 
great  social  popularity,  maintained  sisterly  re 
lations  successively  with  a  number  of  young 
men  ambitious  to  become  still  nearer  and 
dearer  to  her. 


A  MARRIED  MAN  35 

We  alike,  therefore,  rejoiced  in  our  oppor 
tunity  to  stay  quietly  at  home,  and  the  long 
winter  evenings  of  the  first  year  of  our  mar 
ried  life  never  dragged.  We  read  and  we 
chatted,  we  dozed  and  we  played  games,  we 
compared  impressions  regarding  the  cook  and 
cavilled  at  the  price  of  beef,  and  we  were  alto 
gether  happy.  Of  course,  we  dined  out  every 
now  and  then  with  Josephine's  parents  or  w  i  1 1 1 
mine,  and  took  what  they  were  pleased  to  call 
pot-luck  with  intimate  friends  like  the  Bol- 
leses ;  but  to  all  intents  and  purposes  we  es 
chewed  society.  Josephine  had  her  own  rea 
sons  for  not  wishing  to  appear  in  public,  and  I 
was  only  too  willing  to  abet  her  in  this  respect. 
I  invested  in  an  encyclopaedia,  subscribed  to 
the  leading  magazines,  and  pored  over  "  Pigs 
in  Clover  "  and  kindred  puzzles,  with  a  view  to 
making  our  domestic  cosiness  complete. 

Baby  was  born  in  July,  and  by  the  time  we 
returned  from  the  sea-side  in  the  early  autumn, 
Josephine  was  looking  not  merely  like  her  own 
self,  but  handsomer  than  I  had  ever  seen  her. 
Moreover,  she  was  in  famous  spirits,  and  she 
declared  that  she  was  ready  for  anything  and 
everything — words  wrhich  sounded  just  a  little 
ominous  to  my  conjugal  ear. 


36  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

"  Fred,"  she  said,  with  rather  an  apologetic 
air,  one  evening  shortly  after,  "  I  shall  have  to 
order  some  new  clothes." 

"  Whatever  you  see  fit,  my  dear,"  I  answered 
glibly,  for  I  wished  my  wife  to  have  everything 
in  the  way  of  dress  which  she  deemed  essential 
to  her  appearance  and  happiness. 

Being  in  the  habit  of  leaving  the  details  of 
selection  and  purchase  entirely  to  her  discre 
tion,  I  thought  no  more  of  the  matter  until 
one  afternoon,  some  three  weeks  later,  when 
on  my  return  from  down  town  I  was  conducted 
upstairs  into  the  spare  room  by  Josephine, 
with  a  radiantly  mysterious  air,  and  confronted 
with  a  trio  of  elaborately  flounced  and  furbe- 
lowed  ball-dresses  spread  out  upon  the  bed. 

"Don't  you  think  they're  pretty,  Fred?" 
fche  inquired,  solicitously. 

"  What  are  they  for  ?  "  I  asked,  with  pursed 
lips  and  a  wrinkling  brow. 

"For?  Why,  they're  evening  dresses,  of 
course.  The  black  lace  and  the  lilac  silk  are 
for  receptions  or  dinners,  and  the  white  tulle 
is  for  dancing  parties." 

"  I  thought  we  were  not  going  to  any  more 
parties,"  I  said,  dryly.  Josephine  became  sud 
denly  grave,  then  answered  plaintively  :  "  You 


A  MARRIED  MAN  37 

know  I  haven't  been  anywhere   for  a  year, 
Fred." 

"  Neither  have  I,  my  dear.  What  is  more, 
I  have  no  desire  to,"  I  retorted,  with  an  air  of 
such  superior  virtue  that  my  wife  was  visibly 
disconcerted. 

"  You  mustn't  suppose  for  a  moment,  Fred," 
she  faltered,  presently,  "that  I  don't  prefer 
my  quiet  evenings  at  home  with  you  to  any 
thing  else  in  the  world,  for  I  do;  but — but 
don't  you  think  that  if  we  were  never  to  go 
anywhere  people  would  forget  us,  and  we 
should  be  apt  to  grow  dull  and  rusty  ?  Were 
it  not  that  I  feel  as  if  we  owed  it  to  ourselves 
to  go  about  occasionally,  I  shouldn't  mention 
the  fact  that,  while  you  are  at  your  office,  I 
sometimes  never  speak  to  anybody  for  days  at 
a  time  excepting  baby  and  the  servants.  Be 
sides  I  don't  see  very  well  how  we  can  avoid 
going  to  Mrs.  Badger's  reception.  She  would 
be  sure  to  think  it  very  queer  and  pointed  if 
we  stayed  away." 

It  was  now  my  turn  to  look  grave.  To  be 
gin  with,  Mrs.  Badger  was  one  of  my  oldest 
friends.  I  had  been  a  frequent  guest  at  her 
house  during  my  bacherlorhood,  and  was  in 
debted  to  her  for  many  kindnesses.  It  was 


38  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

she  who  gave  us  our  six  Apostle  spoons  when 
we  were  married.  It  would  never  do  for  us  to 
fail  to  appear  at  her  reception.  Moreover,  not 
being  so  bad  a  fellow  at  heart  as  some  people 
would  make  out,  I  was  experiencing  qualms  on 
the  score  of  Josephine's  allusion  to  her  own 
solitary  state  while  I  was  down  town,  and  I 
could  not  help  acknowledging  to  myself  that  it 
was  only  natural  she  should  pine  for  a  little 
diversion  after  being  cooped  up  all  day.  Ac 
cordingly  I  answered,  in  a  tone  of  subdued 
resignation : 

"  If  Mrs.  Badger  is  to  give  a  reception,  I 
suppose  we  shall  have  to  go.  We  ought  not, 
of  course,  to  make  complete  hermits  of  our 
selves.  What  is  the  date  of  it  ?  " 

"A  fortnight  from  to-day.  The  invitation 
only  came  this  afternoon.  And  there  is  an  in 
vitation,  Fred,  from  the  Dobbses  for  a  dinner 
on  the  15th,  and  one  from  Mrs.  Cyrus  Merry- 
man  for  a  small  musical  party  on  the  17th," 
added  my  darling,  timidly.  "What  do  you 
wish  me  to  do  about  them  ?  " 

I  gulped  down  my  feelings  so  as  to  reply 
with  an  affectation  of  cheerfulness. 

"  We  had  better  accept.  I  dare  say  it  will 
do  you  good  to  see  a  little  of  the  world,  for  it 


A  MAIUUED  MAN  39 

is  rather  hard  that  you  should  be  left  alone 
with  me  the  whole  time." 

"  Oh,  Fred,  that  wasn't  what  I  said  at  all. 
It  just  slipped  out  anyway  ;  but  if  I  only  were 
alone  with  you  all  the  time  I  should  never  wish 
to  be  with  anyone  else." 

"  Flatterer,"  I  murmured.  "  On  the  con 
trary,  I  am  ready  to  acknowledge  that  a  little 
variety  will  benefit  us  both,  and  if  you  trot  me 
out  occasionally  I  shall  do  my  best  not  to 
grumble." 

"  And  you  do  think  the  dresses  are  pretty, 
don't  you,  Fred  ? "  she  asked,  imploringly, 
after  escaping  from  the  embrace  with  which 
my  magnanimity  was  rewarded.  "  I  had  been 
looking  forward  so  to  your  liking  them." 

I  praised  her  finery  as  in  duty  bound,  and 
thereafter  for  the  next  fortnight  Josephine's 
eyes  scintillated  expectation,  and  she  went 
about  the  house  humming  snatches  of  old 
waltzes.  But  on  the  evening  itself,  while  she 
was  dressing  for  the  party,  she  turned  sud 
denly  to  me  and  said,  with  a  little  nervous 
shiver :  "  Fred,  I  don't  believe  a  single  soul 
in  the  room  will  speak  to  me.  I  feel  pos 
itively  like  a  green  young  thing  going  to 
her  first  cotillon.  Kemember  that  you  are 


4:0  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

on  no  account  to  leave  me  all  alone  by  my 
self." 

"  Bosh  ! "  I  muttered,  sleepily.  To  tell  the 
truth,  I  had  indulged  in  a  cat-nap  after  din 
ner,  and  had  just  been  waked  up  with  the  in 
junction  that  it  was  time  to  dress.  "  I  wish 
in  the  name  of  goodness  that  I  was  in  bed." 

How  differently  I  would  have  reasoned  a 
twelvemonth  before !  Then  it  seemed  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world  to  struggle 
into  a  dress  suit  at  ten  o'clock  at  night,  when 
a  large  portion  of  humanity  was  getting  ready 
for  slumber.  Now,  while  I  fitted  the  studs 
into  my  shirt-bosom  I  silently  reflected  011  the 
folly  of  turning  night  into  day,  and  inveighed 
against  the  custom  of  going  to  parties  two 
hours  later  than  the  hour  specified  in  the  invi 
tation.  We  had  been  asked  at  eight,  but,  as  Jo 
sephine  sagely  remarked,  it  would  have  been 
crazy  to  order  our  carriage  before  ten  unless  we 
wished  to  be  the  first  to  arrive. 

"We  were  tolerably  early  as  it  was.  Josephine 
looked  superbly  in  her  white  tulle  with  some 
roses,  which  I  had  given  her,  in  her  corsage, 
and  I  felt  decidedly  proud  as  I  made  my  way 
up  to  our  hostess  with  her  on  my  arm.  After 
exchanging  greetings  with  Mrs.  Badger,  we 


A  MARRIED  MAN  41 

fluttered  a  few  yards  to  one  side  and  found 
ourselves  presently  looking  into  each  other's 
eyes  with  much  the  same  helpless  expression 
with  which  the  babes  in  the  wood  must  have 
regarded  each  other  after  their  cruel  uncle  had 
abandoned  them.  I  had  taken  it  for  granted 
that  Josephine's  old  friends  would  stumble 
over  each  other  in  their  haste  to  renew  their 
friendship  with  her,  and,  though  she  assever 
ated  afterward  that  she  had  no  such  expecta 
tion,  I  do  not  believe  that  she  was  prepared  to 
remain  for  five  minutes  exclusively  in  my  so 
ciety.  Several  men  whom  she  knew  bowed 
low  to  her  from  a  distance,  but  that  was  the 
limit  of  their  devotion  for  the  time  being.  A 
queer  sort  of  look  appeared  in  Josephine's 
eyes,  and  she  fanned  herself  with  a  vehemence 
which  seemed  to  me  inconsistent  with  the 
temperature  of  the  atmosphere.  As  for  me,  I 
felt  like  seizing  the  first  available  man  I  knew 
by  the  shoulders  and  asking  him  how  he  dared 
to  leave  a  lovely  creature  like  my  wife  standing 
without  a  soul  to  speak  to  except  her  hus 
band. 

Relief  came  from  an  unexpected  quarter,  in 
the  person  of  young  P.  Augustus  Tornlins, 
toward  whom  I  shall  ever  cherish  kindly  feel- 


42  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

ings,  despite  the  fact  that  he  is  a  worm,  so 
cially  speaking.  At  least,  Josephine  would 
scarcely  have  deigned  to  look  at  him  in  her 
palmy  days,  and,  though  she  was  considerate 
as  belles  go,  would  have  been  apt  to  crush  him 
had  he  persisted  in  forcing  himself  on  her 
attention.  But  you  would  have  supposed  that 
he  was  one  of  her  oldest  friends,  from  the 
effusive  manner  with  which  she  greeted  him 
on  this  occasion.  Indeed,  P.  Augustus  him 
self  seemed  to  be  taken  aback  at  the  cordi 
ality  bestowed  upon  him ;  he  literally  gasped 
with  pleasure,  and  as  he  ambled  off  a  moment 
after  with  my  darling  on  his  arm,  his  feat 
ures  were  singularly  suggestive  of  an  elated 
Cheshire  cat. 

A  married  man  left  to  his  own  devices  in 
a  crowded  ball-room  feels  a  certain  lack  of 
responsibility.  Society  has  become  for  him 
largely  panoramic,  and  he  is  disposed  toward 
contemplative  torpor  rather  than  action.  Mrs. 
Badger's  reception  was  a  coming-out  party  for 
her  niece,  to  which,  colloquially  speaking,  all 
the  world  and  his  mother  had  been  invited, 
and  I  found  myself  viewing,  as  in  a  glass,  the 
several  generations  struggling  for  elbow-room, 
with  a  sense  of  being  a  spectator  rather  than 


A  MARRIED  MAN  43 

a  participant.  From  the  eddy,  into  which  I 
was  swept  by  the  muslin  skirt  of  a  young 
thing  fresh  from  the  nursery,  I  scanned  the 
assembled  company  irresolutely  and  without 
incentive.  I  saw  a  host  of  familiar  faces  and 
many  new  ones.  The  same  Jacks  were  whisk 
ing  the  same  or  different  Jills  round  and  round 
the  smoothly  polished  floor.  The  staircase 
was  lined  with  couples  who  had  sought  shelter 
from  the  torrid  crush  of  the  main  drawing- 
room,  where  it  was  barely  possible  to  move, 
much  less  to  sit  down.  The  turn-turn  of  the 
instruments  contended  fiercely  with  the  hum 
of  many  voices,  to  the  evident  discomfiture  of 
that  old  beau  Gillespie  Gore,  who,  within  ear 
shot  of  where  I  stood,  was  describing  the  re 
cent  excavations  on  the  site  of  ancient  Troy 
to  a  matron  whose  eyes  furtively  followed  her 
daughter's  maiden  progress.  The  ball  was  at 
its  height,  and — familiar  sight — the  couples 
on  the  stairs  were  making  a  pathway  for 
Mrs.  Willoughby  Walton,  who  was  arriving 
abominably  late,  in  black  tulle  and  ostrich 
feathers,  with  a  wealth  of  roses  banked  against 
her  expansive  bosom.  All  seemed  so  natural, 
and  yet  so  completely  different. 

Just  as  I  was  saying  to  myself  that  it  would 


44  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

never  do  for  me  to  stand  ruminating,  and  that 
I  must  speak  to  somebody,  chance  landed 
within  a  few  yards  of  me  my  old  friend,  Miss 
Polly  Flinders,  almost  breathless  with  waltzing. 

Pretty  Polly  Flinders  !  There  was  a  time . 

But  let  that  pass.  These  are  the  reflections  of 
a  married  man.  The  last  time  we  had  met, 
oddly  enough,  was  in  this  very  house,  nearly 
two  years  before,  when  we  had  passed  the 
evening  together  under  an  india-rubber  tree, 
discussing  the  interesting  problem  whether 
girls  are  apt  to  accept  men  the  first  time  they 
ask  them. 

I  sidled  up  to  her  and  inquired  how  she  did, 
and  the  cordial  manner  in  which  she  said, 
"  Why,  how  do  you  do  ?  it's  ages  since  we've 
met ! "  warmed  the  cockles  of  my  heart.  Then 
with  a  beaming,  but  slightly  quizzical,  smile 
she  inquired  after  the  health  of  my  first-born. 
Now,  I  had  for  a  moment  forgotten  that  I  was 
a  husband  and  father,  and  was  willing  for  a 
single  night  to  ignore  the  fact.  Therefore  I 
sought,  by  a  nonchalant  reply,  to  banish  the 
subject  of  little  Fred.  But  Polly,  supposing 
evidently  that  the  only  hold  she  could  hope 
to  have  upon  my  interest  was  through  him, 
would  not  be  balked.  She  not  only  made 


A  MARRIED  MAN  45 

inquiries  as  to  the  color  and  amount  of  his 
hair,  and  the  shade  of  his  eyes,  and  the  devel 
opment  of  his  teeth,  and  as  to  whether  he 
favored  Josephine  or  me  in  his  infantile  phys 
iognomy,  but  she  unearthed  for  my  edification 
all  the  anecdotes  concerning  precocious  babies 
which  had  appeared  in  the  pages  of  Punch, 
P-uck,  or  Life  for  the  past  decade.  She  em 
ployed  successively  in  his  behalf  the  most  flat 
tering  epithets — "  cunning,"  "  sweet,"  "  cute," 
"  angelic  " — but  always,  be  it  said,  under  cloak 
of  an  ambiguous  "  it,"  which  made  clear  to  my 
paternal  instinct  that  she  was  uncertain  as  to 
his  gender,  and  did  not  really  know  him  from 
Adam. 

I  sought  refuge  in  a  waltz,  after  which  I 
asked  Polly,  with  something  of  the  archness 
characteristic  of  my  demeanor  as  a  bachelor,  if 
she  would  not  like  to  quit  the  dancing-room, 
where  we  were  standing  close  to  the  wall  in 
juxtaposition  with  everybody,  for  a  more  re 
tired  spot.  I  had  the  ottoman  underneath 
the  india-rubber  tree  in  my  mind.  Polly 
shook  her  head,  saying  that  she  thought  it  was 
very  nice  where  we  were,  and  began  to  ask  me 
about  the  Symphony  concerts.  From  these 
we  branched  off  to  the  current  theatrical  at- 


46     REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN 

tractions  and  the  unusual  prevalence  of  pneu 
monia.  Though  she  was  kindly  and  amiable 
as  could  be,  and  was  far  too  well-bred  a  girl  to 
let  her  eyes  wander  deliberately  round  the 
room,  it  came  over  me  gradually  that  she  was 
on  the  alert  for  someone  else.  I  asked  her  to 
waltz  again,  but  she  sweetly  pleaded  fatigue  and 
thrust  herself  further  forward,  so  that  she  could 
be  distinctly  visible  from  every  quarter.  Hap 
pily  not  many  minutes  elapsed  before  Andro 
meda  was  rescued  from  her  monster  by  a  mag 
nificent  Perseus  in  a  white  waistcoat,  with 
whom  I  had  the  melancholy  satisfaction  of  es 
pying  her  later  in  the  evening  under  the  india- 
rubber  tree,  deep  doubtless  in  some  problem 
similar  to  that  which  she  and  I  had  left  un 
solved  two  years  before.  Could  I  blame  her  ? 
Surely  not.  Polly  was  an  old  stager,  and  on 
her  last  legs,  matrimonially  speaking.  I  felt 
that  it  was  rather  for  me  to  ask  her  pardon  for 
having  subjected  her  to  the  importunities  of  a 
social  Methuselah  like  myself. 


IV. 


IT  must  have  been  about  three  months  later, 
toward  the  fag  end  of  the  season,  when  Jo 
sephine  said  to  me  impressively  one  evening 
after  our  return  from  some  festivity : 

"  If  a  woman  is  really  in  love  with  her  hus 
band  she  cannot  expect  to  have  a  very  good 
time  at  a  party.  She  may  enjoy  herself  after 
a  fashion,  but  in  order  to  thrill  as  she  did  as  a 
girl  it  is  necessary  to  be  interested  more  or 
less  in  somebody  else.  Which  proves,"  she 
continued,  turning  her  face  fondly  in  my  direc 
tion,  "  that  you  are  a  dear,  darling  duck." 

I  was  detaching  a  rose-bud  from  the  lapel  of 
my  dress-coat  at  the  moment,  and  was  there 
fore  too  busy  to  acknowledge  this  compliment 
appropriately  ;  but  I  took  upon  myself  to  in 
quire  what  she  proposed  to  do  about  it. 

"  I  don't  see  that  I  can  do  anything,  that's 
the  difficulty,"  she  answered  dolefully.  "So 
long  as  you  continue  to  be  tolerably  nice,  I 


\\  B  R  A 

OF   THB 

TTVERSITY 


48  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

suppose  that  I  must  be  content  to  be  more  or 
less  bored  when  I  go  anywhere ;  not  always 
aggressively  bored,  perhaps,  but  comparatively 
so,  considering  the  nice  times  which  some 
married  wTomen  seem  to  have.  If  only  I  were 
able  to  flirt,"  she  added  with  a  despondent 
little  sigh,  "  I  should  get  on  famously." 

I  begged  her  not  to  abstain  from  anything 
of  the  kind  on  my  account. 

"  Don't  flatter  yourself,  my  dear,"  she  said. 
"  The  melancholy  fact  is  I  have  tried  already 
and  failed — failed  signally." 

"  Tried  what  ?  " 

"  Tried  to  flirt,  Fred.  I  have  tried  desper 
ately  ;  but  it  is  no  use.  I  will  confess  that  for 
purely  social  purposes  I  have  done  my  best  to 
imagine  that  I  hate  you,  and  have  stuffed  my 
ears,  metaphorically  speaking,  with  cotton  wool 
so  as  to  obliterate  you  from  my  inner  conscious 
ness  ;  but  it  has  been  a  ghastly  failure ;  you 
would  keep  popping  up  in  my  mind  just  as  I 
was  beginning  to  become  a  little  interested. 
Hence  my  conclusion,  at  which  I  have  arrived 
gradually  and  with  great  reluctance.  Kiss  me, 
dear." 

It  had  not  escaped  my  observation  that  up 
to  this  time  Josephine  had  been  exceedingly 


A  MARRIED  MAN  49 

non-committal  regarding  the  mild  succession 
of  receptions,  dinners,  and  other  evening  en 
tertainments  which  we  had  been  attending. 
In  fact  she  had  been  inclined  to  put  me  off 
with  an  evasive  answer  whenever  I  inquired 
whether  she  had  enjoyed  herself.  Conse 
quently,  I  had  divined  that  she  was  by  no 
means  carried  away  by  her  intercourse  with 
the  gay  world.  But  I  had  not  been  prepared 
for  these  gloomily  philosophical  deductions, 
which  were  peculiarly  interesting  to  me  from 
the  fact  that  they  were  more  or  less  germane 
to  my  own. 

"  In  case  my  death  would  be  any  accommo 
dation "  I  began. 

But  my  wife  interrupted  my  would-be  flip 
pancy  to  say  :  "I  am  not  complaining,  mind 
you,  Fred.  There  are  plenty  of  women  of  my 
age  who  don't  have  half  so  pleasant  a  time  in 
society  as  I  do,  but — but — "  she  added,  with  an 
amused  laugh,  "  it  has  taken  me  until  now  to 
get  accustomed  to  the  idea  that  it  is  impossi 
ble  for  me  to  enjoy  myself  as  I  did  as  a  girl. 
The  flirting  was  the  last  resort,  and  now  that 
has  failed.  Fred,  you  must  be  very  good  to 
me  for  the  rest  of  my  life. 

"  You  see,"  she  continued,  presently,  with  a 
4 


50  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

soliloquizing  air,  "  when  I  went  to  a  party  be 
fore  I  was  married  there  was  always  someone 
on  whom  I  could  count  to  speak  to  me  before 
the  end  of  the  evening,  and  for  whom  I  was 
secretly  on  the  lookout,  as  it  were.  There 
were  apt  to  be  certain  men  who,  without  being 
in  love  with  me  necessarily,  were  so  far  dis 
posed  to  drift  in  my  direction  that  I  was  kept 
perpetually  buoyed  up  while  talking  with  stu 
pid  people  by  the  hope  of  seeing  them,  and 
absorbed  after  they  did  speak  to  me  by  the  de 
lightful  uncertainty  as  to  the  future.  But  now 
there  is  no  uncertainty  at  all ;  everything  has 
happened  that  can  happen  ;  a  view  of  the  case 
which  never  occurred  to  me  until  lately  when 
I  was  trying  to  realize  why  I  didn't  find  society 
more  interesting.  I  did  have  rather  a  good 
time  at  Mrs.  Badger's  reception,  and  the  first 
two  or  three  subsequent  parties,  from  the  sheer 
novelty  of  seeing  people  again  after  so  many 
months.  Everyone  was  very  cordial,  and  what 
with  the  lights  and  the  dresses  and  the  joy  of 
being  able  to  waltz  again  I  didn't  miss  the  fact 
that  no  one  was  particularly  devoted  to  me. 
But  as  time  went  on  and  the  novelty  wore  off, 
I  began  to  be  painfully  aware  that  though  my 
men  friends  of  by-gone  days  would  be  ready  to 


A  MARRIED  MAN  51 

jump  overboard  to  rescue  me  in  case  I  was  in 
peril  of  drowning,  or  to  get  up  a  subscription 
for  me  if  in  pecuniary  distress,  I  couldn't  count 
on  them  to  take  the  least  genuine  interest  in 
me  or  to  talk  other  than  the  dreariest  plati 
tudes.  They  were  superficially  polite  enough, 
and  now  and  then  one  of  them  would  take  me 
out  in  the  german  and  give  me  a  woolly  lamb 
or  a  tinsel  star  " — indicating  a  small  collection 
of  toys  of  this  description  on  her  dressing-ta 
ble,  husbanded  for  the  benefit  of  baby — "  but 
almost  invariably  I  was  made  to  feel  when  one 
of  them  strolled  up  to  me  with  his  hands  in 
his  pockets  and  emitted  a  few  commonplace 
sentences,  that  he  did  it  out  of  charity,  and 
that  he  meant  at  the  same  time  politely  to  give 
me  to  understand  that  having  made  my  choice 
I  must  abide  by  it  and  not  expect  any  very 
great  exertion  on  his  part.  I  was  provoked  by 
this  at  first,  but  after  reflection  I  realized  that 
I  had  no  real  right  to  complain ;  yet  finding  it 
excessively  dull  to  pass  evening  after  evening 
in  this  wise,  I  was  spurred  to  discover  a  reme 
dy,  and  the  remedy  dawned  upon  me  one  day 
all  of  a  sudden  when  my  gaze  happened  to  light 
on  Mrs.  Gregory  Scott  and  Philip  Blair  looking 
into  each  other's  eyes  in  an  alcove.  '  There,' 


52  THE  REFLECTIONS  OP 

said  I  to  myself,  '  is  a  married  woman  who 
really  enjoys  herself.'  And  I  reasoned  in  the 
same  breath,  '  It  is  because  she  is  able  to  for 
get  that  she  is  married.'  And  then,  Fred,  if 
you  will  believe  it  of  me,  I  caught  myself  ask 
ing  whether  I  also  couldn't  manage  to  lay  the 
flattering  unction,  to  my  soul  that  I  was  no 
body's  wife,  and  forget  you,  if  only  for  an 
evening  or  two.  Not  that  I  wished  to  consign 
you  to  oblivion  for  all  time,  as  I  am  afraid  that 
Mrs.  Scott  has  practically  done  in  the  case  of 
Gregory ;  but  I  was  painfully  conscious  of  an 
immediate  intention  to  try  to  become  a  little 
more  like  my  old  self,  cost  what  it  might." 

"  While  it  is  doubtless  a  less  simple  matter 
to  obtain  a  divorce  in  this  commonwealth  as 
compared  with  many  of  the  "Western  States, 
still  I  think,  my  dear,  that  any  judge " 

"  Wait  until  I  have  finished,  Fred,  and  when 
you  hear  how  utterly  I  was  disappointed,  you 
will  agree  that  I  have  been  punished  sufficiently. 
After  making  up  my  mind  to  caxry  out  my  fell 
design,  I  cast  about  me  for  a  victim  on  whom 
to  exercise  my  powers  of  fascination  and  an 
opportunity  for  exercising  them.  Among  the 
men  I  used  to  know  before  we  were  married, 
Reginald  Bobbins  has  been  the  least  indiffer- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  53 

ent  since.  I  never  knew  him  very  well,  but  I 
have  always  rather  liked  him,  and  he  has  been 
growing  steadily  handsome,  so  when  he  hap 
pened  to  speak  to  me  at  Mrs.  Sloane's  nmsicalo 
a  few  evenings  later,  I  said  to  myself,  *  Why 
won't  he  do  ?  '  He  has  naturally  a  gallant  man 
ner,  and  somehow  it  seemed  to  me  that  evening 
when  he  bent  down  to  speak  to  me  that  he  had 
quite  the  air  of  devotion.  At  any  rate,  I  tried 
to  appear  correspondingly  gracious  and  glad  to 
see  him,  and  I  astonished  myself  by  the  spritely, 
not  to  say  flippant,  style  of  my  conversation.  I 
felt  my  heart  going  pit-a-pat  from  excitement 
at  my  efforts,  and  I  kept  saying  to  myself, 
'  Now  you  mustn't  think  of  Fred,  or  baby,  or 
anybody,  but  just  go  ahead  and  enjoy  yourself.' 
As  for  Mr.  Bobbins,  he  looked  astonished  him 
self  at  first,  then  puzzled,  and  then  a  strange 
gleam  of  animation  came  over  his  features,  and 
he  gazed  at  me  in  a  way  which  showed  me  that 
he  thought  he  understood.  Someone  began  to 
sing  an  ardent,  tremendous  piece  from  the 
Italian,  and  through  it  I  was  conscious  of  his 
eyes  riveted  upon  me,  and  when  the  song  was 
finished  he  bent  down  and  whispered  in  my  ear 
in  the  confidential  fashion  which  the  men  who 
are  devoted  to  other's  people's  wives  ordinarily 


54  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

assume.  What  he  said  was  commonplace 
enough,  but  the  way  in  which  he  said  it  sent 
the  blood  flying  to  my  cheeks.  I  felt  that 
everyone  in  the  room  must  be  looking  at  me,  and 
I  was  conscious  of  thinking  how  disagreeable 
it  was,  and  was  glad  to  have  him  just  then  offer 
me  his  arm  to  take  me  into  supper.  At  supper 
he  was  my  devoted  slave,  and  I  employed  the 
intervals  while  he  was  gone  to  get  me  things 
in  soothing  my  ruffled  spirit  and  trying  to  per 
suade  myself  that  I  found  him  entrancing. 
Fortified  by  a  glass  of  champagne,  I  submitted 
to  take  his  arm  again  and  be  led  away  from  the 
world  at  large  into  the  conservatory,  where  we 
established  ourselves  mysteriously  in  a  corner 
as  I  have  often  seen  Mrs.  Scott  and  the  women 
like  her  do.  On  the  way  he  let  fall  two  or 
three  complimentary  speeches,  each  one  of 
which  affected  me  like  so  many  bits  of  ice 
dropped  down  my  back,  though  I  had  ex 
pected  to  find  them  charming,  so  that  when  we 
faced  each  other  after  sitting  doAvn  I  felt  like  a 
ramrod.  Still  determined  to  persevere  I  reso 
lutely  wreathed  my  face  in  a  complacent  smile, 
and  put  my  hands,  metaphorically  speaking, 
over  my  ears  to  shut  out  the  still,  small  voices 
which  seemed  to  be  whispering, '  What  a  fool  you 


A  MARRIED  MAN  55 

are,  what  a  fool  you  are ! '  Then  he  began  to  talk, 
giving  me  to  understand,  in  a  low,  confidential 
tone,  that  his  life  was  not  what  it  might  be  for 
the  lack  of  a  controlling  influence,  and  ever  and 
anon  he  would  bend  his  dark  eyes  upon  me  in  an 
ardent  way,  ostensibly  in  search  of  the  sym 
pathy  which  I  was  expected  to  bestow,  and 
indicating  as  plainly  as  could  be,  short  of  actual 
speech,  that  I  might  become  that  controlling 
influence  if  I  would.  Here  was  exactly  the  situ 
ation  I  had  longed  for ;  and  yet,  struggle  as  I 
would  to  pump  up  a  corresponding  degree  of 
enthusiasm,  I  found  myself  sitting  tongue-tied 
and  coldly  indifferent.  My  emotions  of  dis 
gust  had  given  place  to  mockery,  and  instead 
of  being  absorbed  and  thrilled  by  the  confi 
dences  of  my  victim,  as  I  had  expected,  I  was 
conscious  of  thinking  how  ridiculous  he  was, 
and  I  could  not  help  comparing  him  with  you 
and  reflecting  how  infinitely  nicer  you  were  in 
every  way,  and  what  a  goose  I  was  to  be  sitting 
there.  All  this,  my  dear,  when  I  ought  to 
have  been  yearningly  interested  and  encourag 
ing.  You  may  imagine  what  a  come  down  it 
was  for  me.  I  had  wished  with  all  my  soul  to 
be  sympathetic  and  to  thrill  with  the  pride  of 
conquest,  and  the  outcome  was  that  while  he 


56  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

murmured  to  me  about  his  past  life  I  could 
scarcely  keep  my  eyes  off  his  nose,  which  he 
has  a  way  of  twinkling  like  a  bunny  rabbit,  a 
peculiarity  I  had  never  noticed  before.  It  was 
simply  terrible  to  be  sitting  there  scrutinizing 
him  in  cold  blood  after  leading  him  on  ;  and 
yet  the  intenser  he  became,  the  more  hilarious  I 
grew  inwardly,  and  I  don't  know  what  would 
have  been  the  upshot — I  am  afraid  I  might 
have  laughed  in  his  face — had  I  not  happened 
to  spy  you  in  the  distance,  and  sprung  to  my 
feet  saying  that  you  were  looking  for  me.  An 
expression  of  surprise  and  disappointment 
came  over  my  victim's  features  at  my  abrupt 
termination  of  our  tete-d-tete,  but  he  whispered 
with  eager  earnestness,  'On  what  afternoons 
shall  I  be  likely  to  find  you  at  home  ? '  seeking 
at  the  same  moment  to  retain  my  hand  with  an 
endearing  pressure,  a  symptom  of  his  regard  so 
little  to  my  fancy  that,  looking  him  steadily  in 
the  eyes,  I  answered  with  a  cold  precision 
which  he  could  not  mistake :  ( I  am  never  at 
home  in  the  afternoon,  Mr.  Bobbins.'  Poor 
fellow !  His  devotion  to  me  since  has  been 
limited  to  very  distant  bows ;  but  I — I  am  a 
blighted  being,  Fred;  and,  as  I  said  to  you 
just  now,  you  will  have  to  be  very  good  to  me 


A  MARRIED  MAN  57 

for  the  rest  of  my  life.  And  I  am  getting  gray, 
to  cap  the  climax,"  Josephine  added,  holding 
up  to  the  light  for  close  scrutiny  a  siugje  long 
hair  detached  by  the  sweep  of  her  comb. 

As  I  have  already  hinted,  these  observations 
on  the  part  of  my  wife  were  of  peculiar  interest 
to  me  at  this  time,  for  I  was  in  process  of  mull 
ing  over  in  my  mind  my  own  experiences  of  so 
ciety  as  a  married  man.  Having  admitted  that 
she  was  much  to  be  pitied  for  the  forlornness 
of  her  state,  I  ventured  to  remark,  with  a  tenta 
tive  air : 

"  Does  it  not  seem  to  you,  my  dear,  little 
short  of  inhuman  that  married  people  should 
be  incapable  of  deriving  pleasure  from  the  so 
ciety  of  their  fellow  beings  of  the  opposite  sex 
merely  because  they  happen  to  be  devoted  to 
each  other  ?  " 

"  It  is  true  of  you,  then,  also  ?  "  queried  Jo 
sephine,  with  a  little  gush  of  happiness.  "  I  was 
not  sure  how  it  would  be  in  the  case  of  a  man." 

"  I  was  stating  the  problem  hypothetically," 
I  replied,  with  gravity.  Josephine  regarded 
me  narrowly,  and  said  she  had  noticed  that  I 
had  been  singularly  non-committal. 

"  Surely  I  have  complained  often  enough  of 
being  bored,"  I  answered. 


58  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

11  At  first,  perhaps ;  but  recently  I  have  been 
struck  by  the  fact  that  you  were  perking  up. 
Who,  pray,  gave  you  that  rose-bud  ? "  she 
added,  indicating  the  single  trophy  which  I 
had  carried  away  from  the  german  that  even 
ing. 

"  Mrs.  Guy  Sloane." 

I  spoke  with  an  affectation  of  indifference 
which  was  inconsistent  with  the  confusion  of 
my  cheeks. 

"  Precisely !  I  have  no  doubt,"  continued 
Josephine,  with  sardonic  deliberateness,  "  that 
she  would  be  very  proud  to  add  you  to  her  col 
lection." 

To  the  married  man  the  members  of  the  so 
ciety  in  which  he  moves  possess  an  identity 
more  distinct  than  for  the  young  buck  who  still 
fancies  that  he  may  any  day  set  out  on  an  ex 
ploring  expedition  to  the  North  Pole,  or  decide 
to  settle  in  Seattle.  The  Benedict  arranges 
them  and  dockets  them  in  his  mind's  eye  with 
much  the  same  unconscious  cerebration  with 
which  the  accustomed  whist-player  sorts  his 
hand.  To  a  discriminating  taste  Mrs.  Guy 
Sloane  is  unquestionably  the  most  attractive 
and  interesting  of  all  the  young  married  women 
who  are  socially  significant  in  the  society  to 


A  MARRIED  MAN  5!) 

which  Josephine  and  I  belong.  She  is  not 
a  flibbertigibbet  and  purely  volatile  like  Mrs. 
Gregory  Scott,  nor  aggressively  worldly  like 
Mrs.  Willoughby  Walton  ;  but  she  lacks  neither 
the  piquancy  and  dash  of  the  one  nor  the  en 
terprise,  graciousness,  and  magnificent  procliv 
ities  of  the  other.  Mrs.  Scott  is  a  rampant 
waltzer,  and  when  there  is  no  dancing  to  be 
had  is  perpetually  in  corners.  Mrs.  Walton  is 
nothing  if  not  ultra  fashionable.  Her  costumes 
are  marvels  of  the  dressmaker's  art,  if  somewhat 
scantier  than  occasion  requires.  She  entertains 
superbly,  participates  ardently  in  everything  in 
vogue,  from  a  grand  reception  to  a  mysteriously 
conducted  Chinese  theatre -party,  and  manages 
at  the  same  time  to  inspire  more  or  less  curios 
ity  in  the  social  mind  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
intimacies  which  she  wages  with  successive 
members  of  the  male  sex.  But  no  breath  of 
scandal  has  ever  dallied  with  the  name  of  Mrs. 
Guy  Sloane.  She  is  no  less  genial  in  her  ten 
dencies  than  Mrs.  Walton;  her  establishment 
is  even  more  complete  in  that  it  is  artistic  and 
original.  One  who  dines  with  Mrs.  Willoughby 
may  count  on  caviare  and  terrapin,  but  it  is 
only  at  Mrs.  Guy's  that  you  are  liable  to  hear 
the  centrepiece  of  flowers  suddenly  discourse 


60  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

sweet  music,  or  find  yourself  masticating  a  gen 
uine  Japanese  repast — snails,  seaweed,  raw  fish, 
and  saki  water — served  by  maidens  from  the 
far  East  on  their  bended  knees,  after  the  most 
approved  Oriental  fashion.  But  it  is  not  mere 
ly  that  Mrs.  Guy  is  delightfully  unconventional ; 
a  more  salient  charm  is  the  refined  and  refining 
cast  of  her  intelligence.  She  is  a  patron  of  the 
arts,  a  student  of  books,  and  a  promoter  of  cult 
ure  ;  she  is  prodigiously  prominent  in  philan 
thropy  and  tenement-house  reform  ;  celebrities 
from  abroad  bring  letters  to  her,  and  her  do 
mestic  circle  of  admirers  includes  the  brightest 
minds  of  the  community. 

Unlike  Josephine,  I  had  returned  to  society 
free  from  roseate  anticipations  and  almost  un 
der  protest.  I  had  not  expected  to  be  amused, 
and  even  my  untoward  experience  with  pretty 
Polly  Flinders  left  me  pensive  rather  than  sore. 
I  drifted  aimlessly  from  house  to  house,  nurs 
ing  the  scarcely  concealed  consciousness  that  I 
would  infinitely  rather  be  at  my  own  fireside 
with  the  wife  of  my  bosom  than  gallivanting  in 
the  gay  world.  In  talking  to  the  unmarried 
girls  I  labored  under  the  dread  that  I  was  ob- 
stmcting  pre-matrimonial  billing  and  cooing, 
and  I  found  the  average  married  woman  of 


A  MAURI  ED  MAN  61 

Josephine's  age  complacently  ruminant  as  a 
milch  cow  and  disposed  to  enthusiasm  only  at 
the  mention  of  her  husband's  name.  However 
much  you  may  admire  a  man  it  is  scarcely  ex 
hilarating  to  be  obliged  to  listen  to  a  recapitu 
lation  of  his  virtues  and  opinions  until  you  are 
enabled  to  stifle  the  flow  of  conjugal  eloquence 
with  chicken-salad  and  a  roll.  After  two  or 
three  experiences  of  this  kind  I  suffered  myself, 
by  way  of  preference,  to  be  buttonholed,  on  the 
plea  of  a  glass  of  champagne,  in  the  suppcr- 
room  after  nearly  everybody  had  left  it,  by  Gil- 
lespie  Gore,  whose  views  on  the  tariff,  though 
wearisome,  are  encyclopaedic ;  or  I  would  estab 
lish  myself  by  the  side  of  some  middle-aged 
mother  so  absorbed  in  keeping  an  eye  on  her 
daughter  as  to  be  unaware  if  I  was  passably 
somnolent. 

But  the  most  devoted  husband  must  feel  im 
pelled  at  last,  by  dint  of  purposeless  drivel  on 
his  own  part,  if  by  no  other  motive,  to  try  to 
make  the  best  of  a  distasteful  situation.  He;  i  v<  •  u 
knows  I  had  no  inclination  to  flirt  with  any 
body,  as  did  my  darling,  according  to  her  own 
confession,  and  not  once  did  it  occur  to  me  that 
I  wished  myself  unfettered  by  the  vows  of  mar 
riage.  I  was  too  radiantly  happy  to  desire  to 


62  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

obscure  or  blot  out  for  a  moment  the  image  of 
Josephine  from  my  social  retina.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  was  distinctly  weary  of  wandering 
from  drawing-room  to  drawing-room  without  a 
purpose,  and  just  as  Josephine's  attention  grad 
ually  centred  itself  on  certain  women  with  a 
view  to  emulating  their  behavior,  my  starved 
state  of  mind  turned  for  recreation  and  com 
panionship  in  a  similar  direction. 

The  three  women  to  whom  I  have  already 
alluded  stood  out  conspicuously  from  the  rest 
as  the  leading  social  spirits  of  the  hour.  I  hes 
itated  briefly  between  them,  but  only  briefly. 
A  few  words  with  Mrs.  Gregory  Scott  sufficed 
to  convince  me  that  though  she  might  grow  in 
favor  with  me,  I  should  never  do  for  her.  We 
had  been  acquaintances  in  former  days,  before 
either  she  or  I  were  married  ;  but  we  had  never 
been  particularly  sympathetic.  She  had  been 
inclined,  I  think,  to  regard  me  as  a  little  slow, 
and  though  she  received  my  present  advances 
graciously  enough,  her  small,  snapping  eyes 
seemed  to  say  that  whoever  aspired  to  stand 
high  in  her  regard  must  be  in  attendance  early 
and  late,  be  prodigal  of  flowers  and  small  atten 
tions,  be  ready  to  fetch  and  carry  and  make 
himself  generally  useful.  My  need  was  com- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  63 

panionship,  not  servitude  ;  accordingly  I  made 
niy  bow  and  turned  elsewhere. 

On  the  other  hand,  Mrs.  "Willoughby  Walton, 
with  all  her  social  prestige,  impressed  me  as 
aspiring  chiefly  to  reproduce  the  type  of  fash 
ionable  woman  who  figures  in  the  pages  of  con 
temporary  Parisian  fiction ;  and  just  as  the 
bastard  imitations  of  the  French  novelists  writ 
ten  in  our  mother  tongue  seem  to  me  wholly  to 
lack  the  fascination  of  their  Gallic  prototypes, 
the  reflection  was  forced  upon  me  that  I  should 
find  an  affair  with  Mrs.  Willoughby  no  less  in 
sipid  than  compromising.  The  world  may  par 
don  a  man  who  is  enthralled  by  a  woman  who 
knows  no  scruples,  but  it  justly  jeers  at  one 
who  dangles  at  the  heels  of  a  woman  who  mere 
ly  pretends  to  be  bad.  The  trouble  with  Mrs. 
Willoughby  Walton  is  that  she  only  makes  be 
lieve  ;  she  does  her  very  best  to  let  people  sup 
pose  that  she  is  stupendously  immoral,  and  yet 
the  world  is  well  aware  in  its  secret  soul  that 
when  brought  to  the  scratch  she  has  the  virtue 
of  a  nun.  In  her  case  all  is  smoke  and  there  is 
no  fire.  She  reminds  one,  by  her  general  atti 
tude  of  depravity,  of  those  nervous,  fiery-look 
ing  steeds  which  snort  and  sidle  and  caracole 
and  champ  until  they  reek  with  foam,  but  which 


64  TUB  REFLECTIONS  OF 

can  never  be  induced  to  run  away.  Women  of 
her  type  are,  so  to  speak,  neither  fish,  flesh, 
fowl,  nor  good  red  herring.  Indeed,  it  would 
seem  not  altogether  unfitting  if  the  Deity  in 
His  infinite  wisdom  were  to  consign  them  in 
the  great  hereafter  to  a  limbo,  neither  heaven 
nor  hell,  similar  to  that  which  confined  the 
caitiff  choir  of  angels  in  Dante's  Inferno,  who 
neither  were  faithful  to  God  nor  rebellious. 

"  The  heavens  expelled  them  not  to  be  less  fair, 
Nor  them  the  nethermore  abyss  receives, 
For    glory  none    the    damned  would   have  from 
them!" 

But,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  no  charge 
of  indiscretion  had  ever  been  brought  against 
Mrs.  Guy  Sloane.  As  I  watched  her  furtively 
I  recognized  that  she  was  neither  shallow  nor 
fast,  that  she  was  alike  cultured  and  uncom 
promising.  I  may  have  reflected  also  that  Jo 
sephine,  though  eminently  intelligent  and  well 
educated,  did  not  profess  to  be  a  clever  person, 
and  that  it  would  be  interesting  to  discuss  the 
phases  of  advanced  thought  with  one  who  man 
ifestly  aspired  to  keep  abreast  of  the  times. 
Since  my  duty  to  my  wife  and  the  world  at 
large  required  my  occasional  presence  in  socie- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  65 

ty,  why  not  seek  companionship  with  so  edify 
ing  a  personage,  instead  of  kicking  my  heels 
in  semi-somnolence  ?  In  my  bachelor  days, 
although  we  had  been  acquaintances,  I  had 
rather  avoided  Mrs.  Sloane  from  the  fatuous 
diffidence  which  often  restrains  a  youth  from 
accosting  a  woman  of  so  much  consideration. 
It  was  consequently  delightfully  reassuring 
that  she  should  receive  me  without  a  trace  of 
haughtiness  or  reserve  on  the  occasion  when  I 
made  my  first  advances  to  her.  We  talked  to 
gether  only  for  a  few  minutes  before  she  was 
appropriated  by  someone  else,  but  later  in  the 
evening,  while  I  was  standing  aimlessly  among 
a  group  of  other  husbands  waiting  for  their 
wives  who  were  dancing  the  german,  she  chose 
to  beckon  me  forth  to  receive  the  rosebud 
which  it  was  her  privilege  to  bestow.  After 
conducting  her  to  her  seat  I  lingered  for  a 
few  minutes  in  conversation,  and  when  I  rose 
to  go  she  said,  with  sweet,  frank  graciousness, 
which  withal  savored  of  confidence  : 

"  Do  come  and  see  me." 

Hence  it  was  that  when  Josephine  unbos 
omed  to  me  the  conclusion  at  which  she  had 
arrived,  I  inquired  if  it  did  not  seem  to  her 
little  short  of  inhuman  that  married  people 
5 


66      REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN 

should  be  incapable  of  deriving  pleasure  from 
the  society  of  their  fellow  beings  of  the  oppo 
site  sex  merely  because  they  happened  to  be 
devoted  to  each  other.  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  to  call  on  Mrs.  Sloane,  and  so  far  as  my 
own  sex  was  concerned  was  not  altogether 
prepared  at  this  juncture  to  agree  with  my 
darling. 


V. 


and  see  me  "  is  the  supplicating 
formula  ever  on  the  lips  of  the  married 
woman  with  social  proclivities.  The  other 
woman's  husband  to  whom  it  is  addressed  in 
stinctively  replies  that  he  will  make  a  point 
of  doing  so,  but  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten 
never  goes.  Verily,  if  a  married  man  were  to 
try  to  sip  afternoon  tea  at  every  hearth  where 
he  is  confidingly  invited  to  make  himself  at 
home,  he  would  soon  be  bankrupt  in  days  and 
hours. 

To  the  married  man  who  is  busy  down-town 
all  day,  an  afternoon  call  is  a  serious  circum 
stance.  It  involves  feverish  hurry,  if  not  the 
expense  of  a  cab,  in  order  to  get  up-town  and 
make  himself  presentable  before  it  is  too  late. 
You  bound  up-stairs  two  steps  at  a  time, 
change  your  shirt,  boots,  and  necktie,  slip  on 
a  black  coat,  and  deaf  to  domestic  outcries, 
bolt  from  the  house,  and  at  about  a  quarter 


68  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

past  five  halt,  perspiring  and  breathless,  at  the 
desired  threshold. 

You  find  your  hostess  in  an  artistic  drawing- 
room,  where  a  freshly-kindled  wood-fire  sput 
ters  invitingly  and  the  waning  daylight  has 
given  place  to  a  pink  or  saffron  atmosphere 
provided  by  a  trio  of  lamps  with  festive  shades. 
You  are  likely,  if  the  house-maid  be  careless, 
to  detect  a  faint  aroma  of  kerosene,  otherwise 
of  violets.  A  posse  of  spotted  china  dragons 
gapes  at  you  from  the  fireplace,  and  an  array 
of  small  silver  ornaments  twinkles  at  you  from 
low  plush  tables ;  you  catch  a  general  glint  of 
vellurn-bound  volumes  and  photographs  of 
wan-eyed  women  in  queer  frames,  and  sundry 
sepia  etchings  on  the  wall,  and  a  variety  of 
brilliant-lined  cushions  disguising  the  discom 
fort  of  numerous  quaintly-fashioned  chairs  and 
sofas,  and  forth  from  her  shadowy  corner  the 
mistress  of  it  all,  blithe,  sinuous,  and  gracious, 
stretches  a  welcoming  hand  and  waves  you  to 
a  seat  with  soft-toned  greetings. 

You  recite  the  current  news  of  the  hour 
while  the  mechanical,  mysterious  man-servant 
establishes  the  burnished  urn  and  the  Japan 
ese  tray  resplendent  with  the  daintiest  silver 
ware  and  cups  and  saucers.  In  silence  you 


A  MARRIED   MAN  69 

watch  your  hostess  saturate  the  tea-leaves  with 
sphinx-like  preoccupation,  as  though  she  were 
performing  a  sacrificial  rite,  and  it  is  only 
when  she  has  left  the  chemical  process  to  fulfil 
itself  and  has  dropped  back  among  her  cush 
ions  that  you  feel  words  to  be  seemly.  And 
then  you  talk,  you  and  she  also — talk  of  any 
thing  and  everything,  of  the  book  of  verses 
close  to  her  hand,  of  the  ethical  considerations 
governing  divorce,  of  the  latest  phase  in  art,  of 
Christian  science,  of  Heine,  of  the  sweating 
system,  or  of  the  Australian  ballot  law.  The 
conversation  flows  with  the  quiet  intensity  of 
a  river,  the  battledoor  and  shuttlecock  of  ar 
gument  proceeds  with  delightful  agility  on 
either  part.  You  marvel  at  your  own  fluency 
almost  as  much  as  at  the  felicity  arid  clever 
ness  of  her  diction,  and  you  realize  that  you 
are  being  spurred  to  put  your  best  foot  for 
ward.  You  are  conservative,  naturally,  being 
a  lawyer,  and  as  a  man  of  the  world  inclined 
to  be  sceptical  and  materialistic ;  she,  on  the 
other  hand,  leans  toward  ideality,  or  truth,  as 
she  delights  to  call  it,  and  she  rebuts  the  blows 
of  your  cold  logic  with  fervid  syllogisms.  A 
Christian  worshipper,  she  yet  'has  a  warm  cor 
ner  in  her  heart  for  Buddha ;  an  allopath  and, 


70  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

in  her  own  words,  a  humble  devotee  of  science, 
she  smiles  like  a  seraph  at  mysterious  cures ; 
and  her  interrogative  eyebrows  perpetually  fend 
from  satire  the  splayfoot  of  the  impressionist. 

How  deftly  she  remembers  your  prejudices 
in  respect  to  cream  and  sugar  when  the  chemi 
cal  process  is  complete  and  she  proffers  you  a 
cup  of  tea !  A  man's  wife  may  live  to  be  a 
hundred  and  yet  never  be  certain  whether  he 
takes  one  lump  or  two  ;  women  like  Mrs.  Gruy 
Sloane  need  to  be  told  but  once.  And  while 
you  dally  with  your  cup  and  munch  a  delicate 
shred  of  bread  and  butter,  or  a  biscuit  of  eva 
nescent  and  fairy-like  thinness,  she  pursues  her 
argument  with  a  glib  and  wistful  intensity 
which  holds  you  in  its  thrall  until  another  vis 
itor  arrives  or  the  tones  of  the  clock  warn  you 
that  your  dinner  hour  is  approaching. 

"  You  will  come  again  soon,"  she  says  wist 
fully,  as  you  bow  low  over  her  outstretched 
hand,  and  you  murmur  that  you  assuredly  will, 
and  as  you  scurry  home,  so  as  to  be  in  time 
for  the  family  mutton,  the  odor  of  violets  is  in 
your  nostrils  and  you  shrink  from  ugliness  and 
squalor  (pronounced  squalor)  with  the  sensi 
tiveness  of  one  whose  aesthetic  instincts  have 
been  gloriously  catered  to. 


A   MARRIED  MAN  71 

So  it  is  the  first  time  and  the  second,  and  so 
it  is  substantially  the  fifth,  and  then  there 
conies  a  change ;  a  gradual  one,  but  nevertheless 
a  change,  and  on  her  part,  not  on  yours.  You 
have  found  each  recurring  call  as  enjoyable,  if 
not  more  so,  than  the  last,  and  have  come  to 
regard  these  five  o'clock  meetings  as  one  of 
your  most  agreeable  diversions  from  workaday 
routine.  She  has  lent  you  books  bristling 
with  modern  thought,  and  you  have  read  them, 
and  you  have  bent  the  full  blast  of  your  intel 
ligence  on  the  tenement-house  problem  and 
the  development  of  the  stage,  and  learned  to 
distinguish  between  an  artist  and  a  painter,  so 
that  you  are  a  perfect  arsenal  of  eager,  com 
bative  opinions  on  these  several  subjects.  Yet 
you  are  asking  yourself  why  it  is  that,  though 
you  are  far  better  equipped  and  consequently  a 
much  more  interesting  companion  than  at  first, 
she  manifests  a  certain  listlessness  while  you 
are  talking,  and  instead  of  appreciating  and 
endeavoring  to  answer  your  subtleties  shows  a 
disposition  to  avoid  discussion.  She  wears, 
too,  an  air  of  gentle,  cold  melancholy,  as 
though  she  were  disappointed  in  you,  which  is 
puzzling  and  disconcerting.  You  interrogate 
your  inner  consciousness  as  to  how  you  can 


72  TUE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

possibly  have  off ended  her,  and  you  remain 
nonplussed.  It  seems  to  you  as  she  sits  toy 
ing  with  her  teaspoon,  that  her  eyebrows  have 
become  almost  scornful.  What  is  the  matter  ? 
What  have  you  done  ? 

But  for  Josephine  the  cause  might  never 
have  been  revealed  to  me  in  my  own  particular 
experience  with  Mrs.  Guy  Sloane.  As  it  was, 
I  remained  completely  mystified  until  our  in 
timacy  had  faded  into  commonplace  acquaint 
ance.  There  was  never  any  breach  between 
us,  never  a  disagreeable  word ;  yet  little  by 
little  the  emanation  of  her  chilling,  listless  dis 
dain  reduced  me  to  wondering  silence.  Con 
scious  that  my  conversation  was  listened  to 
with  perfunctory  politeness,  I  became  tongue- 
tied  and  moody  in  my  turn,  and  so  far  ill  at 
ease  that  on  one  occasion  I  devoured  involun 
tarily  the  entire  supply  of  thin  shreds  of  bread 
and  butter,  whereupon  she  summoned  the  mys 
terious  man-servant,  and  with  a  haughty,  piti 
ful  smile  bade  him  bring  a  fresh  relay.  There 
was  a  perpetual  sadness  in  her  expression  which 
told  me  more  plainly  at  each  successive  meet 
ing  that  I  had  been  weighed  in  the  balance  and 
been  found  wanting,  a  sadness  which  seemed 
to  imply  that  she  had  put  her  trust  in  me  in 


A  MARRIED  MAN  73 

vain.  At  one  of  our  last  interviews,  when  she 
was  more  than  commonly  plaintive,  and  I  was 
beating  my  brain  to  discover  the  cause  of  my 
un worthiness,  I  asked  myself  the  question,  if  it 
could  possibly  be  that  she  expected  me  to  clasp 
her  in  my  arms  and  fold  her  to  my  breast  after 
the  manner  of  M.  de  Camors  and  other  worthies ; 
but  I  dismissed  the  idea  as  out  of  the  question. 
Had  it  been  Mrs.  Willoughby  Walton — absit 
omen;  but  it  was  sacrilege  even  to  formulate 
such  an  idea  concerning  Mrs.  Guy  Sloane. 

"  She  would  have  screamed  if  you  had,  and 
there  would  have  been  a  terrible  scene,  and  she 
would  never  have  spoken  to  you  again,"  said 
Josephine,  when  I  laid  the  matter  before  her. 
"  Still  she  would  have  forgiven  you  in  her  secret 
soul,  which  she  will  never  do  now,"  she  added, 
with  gentle  jubilation. 

"  What  have  I  done  ?  " 

"  Done  ?  You  have  committed,  Fred,  the 
unpardonable  sin — to  a  woman — of  seeming 
more  interested  in  the  subjects  you  were  dis 
cussing  than  in  her,  of  forgetting  her  in  your 
enthusiasm  for  a  notion  or  idea." 

"  But  she  was  interested  in  the  subjects  her 
self  at  first,  fully  as  much  as  I.  It  was  her 
enthusiasm  which  aroused  mine." 


74  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

"  Poor  simple  innocent !  Are  you  so  guile 
less  as  to  suppose  that  a  woman  like  Mrs. 
Sloane  is  content  to  have  a  man  call  upon  her 
once  or  twice  a  week  simply  to  discuss  sub 
jects  ?  I  grant  you  that  she  is  interested  in 
subjects,  or  rather  that  she  interests  herself  in 
them,  but  they  are  by  themselves  merely  so 
many  husks  in  her  intention.  I  can  see  you, 
Fred,  completely  engrossed  in  the  considera 
tion  of  some  grand  problem  to  the  utter  for- 
getfulness  of  everything  else,  and  under  the 
goad  of  genuine  conviction  pouring  out  a  tor 
rent  of  speech  with  the  impetus  of  a  steam  fire- 
engine  ;  lean  see  you,  dear,  I  can  see  you.  And 
you  flattered  yourself,  I  dare  say,  that  your 
logic  was  unanswerable  and  that  your  argument 
was  knocking  hers  into  a  cocked  hat,  and  you 
never  dreamed  for  one  moment  of  the  cold 
shower-bath  effect  which  your  magnificent 
harangue  was  having  upon  her  sensibilities  and 
hopes." 

"  Hopes  of  what  ?  " 

"Don't  interrupt  me,  Fred,  and  don't  misun 
derstand  me.  Mrs.  Sloane  is  a  woman  whose 
good  name  is  above  suspicion.  As  I  said 
to  you  a  minute  ago,  if  you  had  kissed  her 
she  would  have  screamed  and  been  mortally 


A  MARRIED  MAN  75 

offended;  an  avowal  of  passion  would  have 
shocked  and  distressed  her  irreparably,  for  she 
never  harbored  such  an  expectation  in  her  life. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  in  admitting  you  to 
her  intimacy  she  had  definite  hopes  which  you 
have  failed  to  satisfy ;  hopes  of  sympathy,  of 
mutual  confidences  as  to  your  and  her  most 
secret  and  personal  affairs,  of  inducing  you  to 
substitute  her  for  me  as  an  intellectual  com 
panion  so  far  as  was  compatible  with  entire 
respectability;  all  of  which  might  have  been 
extremely  harassing  for  poor  me  had  you  not 
been  the  delightful,  obtuse,  true-to-your-own- 
dear-wif ey  darling  that  you  are.  In  short,  Fred, 
she  asked  for  bread  and  you  gave  her  a  stone." 

"  In  other  words,  she  expected  me  to  fall  in 
love  with  her  ?  " 

"  Call  it  '  sympathize  with  her  ; '  '  love '  is 
such  a  strenuous  term.  She  expects  the  in 
dividuals  who  belong  to  her  collection  to  be 
sympathetic,  that's  all.  She  and  her  husband, 
though  they  preserve  outward  appearances, 
agreed  to  disagree  long  ago,  as  everyone 
knows  ;  and  accordingly  she  is  lonely,  poor 
soul  (what  would  she  say  if  she  knew  that  in 
significant  little  I  had  ventured  to  pity  her !), 
and  in  her  loneliness  she  reaches  out  after 


76  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

other  women's  husbands  for  sympathy,  some 
what  as  the  cuckoo  usurps  the  nests  and  sucks 
the  eggs  of  other  birds.  She's  a  sort  of  social 

OO 

cuckoo,  Fred,  but  of  the  most  refined,  fastidi 
ous  delicate  kind.  She  would  be  incapable  of 
creating  a  scandal  in  the  heinous  sense  of  the 
term,  and  had  she  succeeded  in  getting  you 
into  her  clutches  your  duties  would  not  have 
been  severe.  You  would  have  been  expected  to 
divine  that  she  was  unhappy — she  would  have 
given  you  to  understand  it  in  a  variety  of  ways 
without  ever  condescending  to  tell  you  so  in 
express  words — and  to  imply  by  your  manner 
that  did  not  other  ties  on  her  side  and  yours 
forbid,  matters  might  be  very  different.  You 
would  have  been  expected  to  hint  at  my  little 
failings  without  actually  mentioning  them,  so 
as  to  give  her  an  opportunity  to  rhapsodize 
exaltedly  on  the  sternness  of  fate  and  the 
pathos  of  disjointed  wedlock.  You  would 
have  been  expected  to  follow  her  moods — to 
rejoice  when  she  was  glad  and  to  be  lugubri 
ous  when  she  was  depressed — and  to  be  at 
her  beck  and  call  sufficiently  to  be  willing  to 
fill  places  at  the  last  minute  at  her  dinner 
parties  (by  which  means  she  would  be  able  to 
dispense  with  my  society  excepting  on  the  one 


A  MARRIED  MAN  77 

or  two  formal  occasions  in  every  year  when 
she  would  invite  us  both  together),  and  to  pass 
examinations  on  the  marked  passages  in  the 
books  she  lent  you.  And  in  return,  Fred,  she 
would  have  vouchsafed  you  on  every  occasion 
her  most  yearning  smile  and  her  most  gracious 
hand-pressure,  and  she  would  never  have 
wearied  of  holding  forth  to  you,  beside  her 
dainty  tea-table  by  subdued  lamp-light,  upon 
all  the  osophies." 

"  Dearest,"  said  I,  as  Josephine,  having  con 
cluded  her  exposition,  regarded  me  with  a  sus 
picion  of  mockery  in  her  dark  eyes,  "  you 
should  have  put  me  on  my  guard ;  you  should 
not  have  subjected  your  Frederick  to  such  un 
toward  liabilities." 

"  So  I  did.  I  warned  you  at  the  start — the 
evening  she  gave  you  the  rose-bud — that  she 
would  be  proud  to  add  you  to  her  collection. 
But  what  use  would  it  have  been  to  warn 
you  ? "  Josephine  added,  eating  her  words 
with  the  sweet  complacency  peculiar  to  the 
female  logician  ;  "  you  would  not  have  believed 
me.  Have  you  forgotten  your  haughty  refusal 
to  subscribe  to  my  proposition,  that  married 
people  who  love  each  other  cannot  expect  to 
have  a  very  good  time  in  society  ?  " 


78  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

"  And  I  have  suffered  for  it,"  I  replied, 
meekly. 

"We  have  both  of  us  suffered  in  making 
the  discovery;  but  it  is  a  genuine  discovery. 
Hold  up  your  right  hand,  Fred,  and  repeat 
after  me,  to  show  that  you  are  thoroughly 
contrite  and  convinced,  Married  people — who 
really  love  each  other — cannot  expect  to  have 
— a  very  good  time  in  society." 

I  did  as  I  was  bid,  and  I  was  tempted  to 
add  a  heart-felt  amen,  which  evidently  sug 
gested  to  Josephine  that  I  had  derived  from 
her  formula  hopes  of  emancipation  beyond  her 
purpose,  for  she  hastened  to  add,  with  distinct 
ness  : 

"  All  the  same,  we  shall  have  to  continue 
to  accept  invitations  now  and  then ;  we  owe 
it  to  ourselves  and  to  baby  to  do  so.  And  I 
am  rather  inclined  to  think  that,  having  once 
and  finally  dismissed  all  roseate  anticipations 
and  made  up  our  minds  to  expect  very  lit 
tle,  we  shall  really  enjoy  ourselves  tolerably 
well." 

"  Just  as  people  who  have  lost  a  leg  grad 
ually  find  life  bearable  in  the  teeth  of  being 
obliged  to  hobble." 

"  What  an  unpleasant  analogy,  Fred  !     No, 


A  MARRIED  MAN  79 

dear,  I  expect  to  reap  my  enjoyment  from  the 
consciousness  of  how  very  much  nicer  you 
are  than  other  men  and  from  being  glad  that 
it  is  so." 


VI. 


SAID  my  predecessor  in  ownership  of  the 
house  which  I  occupy,  as  we  were  walk 
ing  away  from  the  registry,  just  after  the  title 
had  passed,  "  You  asked  the  other  day  why  we 
wished  to  move,  and  I  told  you  we  needed 
more  room.  That  was  true  enough ;  but  the 
controlling  reason  is  my  wife's  conviction  that 
we  shall  never  have  a  boy  so  long  as  we  live  in 
that  block.  She  began  saying  so  when  our 
fourth  girl  was  born,  and  we  have  five  girls 
now.  It  is  a  girl  block.  We  have  lived  there 
eight  years,  and  during  all  that  time  there  has 
been  but  a  single  boy  baby  born  in  it,  and  he 
died  within  twenty-four  hours.  As  I  tell  my 
wife,  by  moving  we  can  only  have  another  girl 
at  the  worst,  and  on  the  other  hand  a  change 
may  break  the  succession.  But  very  likely 
you  prefer  girls." 

My  preferences  on  this  score  at  that  period 
were  very  vague,  yet,  in  spite  of  my  freedom 


REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN    81 

from  superstitions  in  general,  I  could  not  avoid 
the  reflection  that  it  would  have  been  more 
considerate  of  my  vendor  to  mention  this  flaw 
in  the  title  before  the  papers  were  passed,  if 
he  felt  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  do  so  at  all. 
Accordingly,  when  my  wife  divulged  to  me, 
one  day  about  a  year  later,  that  the  couple  in 
question,  who  were  living  in  an  adjacent  street, 
had  been  blessed  with  twins,  and  girl  twins  at 
that,  I  was  ungenerous  enough  to  wave  my 
dinner  napkin  around  my  head  and  to  chant  a 
paean. 

"  Perhaps  that  will  remove  the  spell  from 
our  block,"  said  Josephine,  yearningly. 

"  Who  knows  ?  "  I  answered,  snatching  at 
the  suggestion,  for,  to  tell  the  truth,  by  reason 
doubtless  of  the  very  fact  that  ours  was  said  to 
be  a  girl  block,  we  had  both  set  our  hearts  on 
having  a  boy.  And  although  the  appalling 
character  of  our  predecessor's  statistics  had 
been  somewhat  modified  by  the  discovery  that 
of  the  twenty  houses  in  our  row  several  were 
occupied  by  old  maids,  and  one  by  an  elderly 
single  gentleman,  and  several  more  by  people 
who  had  no  children  at  all,  and  at  least  four 
by  couples  whose  children  were  too  old  to  have 
been  born  within  the  specified  eight  years,  the 


82  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

most  searching  investigation  on  the  part  of 
Josephine  had  failed  to  invalidate  his  testi 
mony  regarding  the  gender  in  the  households 
where  there  had  been  births.  As  a  conse 
quence  she  had  confided  to  me  more  than  once 
that  she  felt  in  her  bones  it  would  be  a  girl, 
and,  though  I  wore  a  confident  front  in  her 
presence,  the  serenity  of  my  brow  could  not 
always  dispel  the  haunting  recollection  that  I 
had  seen  men  at  the  club  lose  a  dozen  games 
of  whist  running  by  obstinately  sticking  to 
the  same  seat.  Analogously,  was  it  not  high 
ly  probable  that  by  braving  destiny  I  had 
entailed  upon  myself  a  long  line  of  daugh 
ters  ? 

The  birth  of  little  Fred  in  the  teeth  of  local 
tradition  and  parental  foreboding  was  followed 
at  a  comparatively  short  period  by  the  arrival 
of  another  son,  whose  angelic  presence — such 
is  the  contrariness  of  human  nature — evoked 
from  his  mother,  after  she  and  he  were  com 
fortably  out  of  the  woods,  an  insinuation  to 
the  effect  that  there  might  be  too  much  of  a 
good  thing. 

"  You  mustn't  think  for  an  instant  that  I 
would  wish  baby  to  be  other  than  the  sweet 
little  cherub  he  is " — these  were  her  exact 


A  MARRIED  MAN  83 

words — "  but  if  we  should  ever  have  another, 
Fred,  I  do  hope  it  will  be  a  girl." 

"  If  we  should  have  another !  "  The  tenta- 
tiveness  (as  the  novelists  say)  of  the  expres 
sion  betrayed  that  even  Josephine,  with  all 
her  eagerness  for  a  daughter,  was  not  with 
out  some  qualms  on  the  score  of  adding  to 
our  joint  parental  burdens.  It  is  a  common 
device,  both  among  people  who  have  nothing 
to  do  and  those  whose  mission  it  is  to  stimu 
late  thrifty  instincts  in  the  young,  to  call  at 
tention  to  the  enormous  sum  total  of  pennies 
which  results  from  beginning  with  a  penny, 
and  then  doubling  the  penny,  and  after  multi 
plying  the  product  by  two  to  continue  doub 
ling  the  successive  multiplications  once  a  day 
for  a  calendar  month.  The  product  is  in  the 
millions,  if  not  billions.  While  it  cannot  be 
said  that  the  responsibilities  and  expenses  of 
the  modern  parent  mount  upward  with  quite 
the  same  fatal  facility  as  in  the  case  of  the 
pennies  (let  the  unmercenary  or  merely  arith 
metical  substitute  horse-shoe  nails),  there  is 
certainly  considerable  analogy  between  the  two 
processes.  Leaving  aside  as  too  pathological 
for  mention  the  circumstance,  including  a 
monthly  nurse  at  ever  so  much  a  minute  and 


84  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

meals  by  herself,  which  attends  the  ushering 
into  existence  of  each  successive  little  stranger, 
the  modern  paterfamilias  may  be  said  to  lay 
the  apex  stone  of  his  inverted  pyramid  by  the 
purchase  of  a  baby-carriage — to  be  relined  and 
refurbished  for  each  new-comer.  And  then,  O 
ye  gods  !  mark  how  the  pyramid  mounts  and 
spreads  !  From  the  baby-wagon  to  the  rattle 
and  the  woolly  horse ;  from  the  woolly  horse 
to  the  balloon,  the  tricycle  (or  a  doll  which 
will  shut  her  eyes),  and  two  extra  quarts  of 
milk  daily  ;  from  extra  quarts  of  milk  daily  to 
extra  chops  and  eggs  daily,  boots  and  shoes, 
the  kindergarten,  rabbits,  and  puzzling  inter 
rogatories  to  be  answered  concerning  the  In 
finite  ;  from  puzzling  interrogatories  to  the 
safety  (?)  bicycle  (or  a  doll  which  will  talk), 
manual  training  in  carpentry,  the  dancing 
academy,  and  patent-leather  pumps,  plates  for 
the  teeth,  the  whooping-cough,  a  miniature 
steam-engine  (or  a  doll's  house  which  is  broader 
than  the  door-sill),  and  a  detective  camera ; 
from  a  detective  camera — prithee,  is  it  not  a 
goodly  pile  already  ?  And  yet  its  proportions 
are  still  but  a  tithe  of  what  will  follow.  Up 
ward  and  ever  broadening  mounts  your  pyra 
mid  until  its  surface  rivals  in  magnificent  area 


A  MARRIED  MAN  85 

that  famous  hat  of  the  Quangle  Wangle  Quee 
of  Lear's  ditty : 

"  For  his  hat  was  one  hundred  and  two  feet  wide, 
With  ribbons  and  bibbons  on  every  side, 
And  bells  and  buttons  and  loops  and  lace, 
So  that  nobody  ever  could  see  the  face 
Of  the  Quangle  Wangle  Quee  !  " 

Verily  the  married  man  of  to-day  with  a 
rising  family  becomes  frightened  if  he  allows 
himself  to  ponder  the  situation.  He  lies  awake 
at  night  and  is  disposed  to  offer  a  chair  to  every 
life-insurance  agent  who  intrudes  upon  his 
privacy.  And,  as  Josephine  often  says,  the 
worst  of  it  is,  there  is  really  nothing  to  be  done 
about  it.  Would  you  have  the  children  wear 
the  same  thin  flannels  all  the  year  round  ?  Do 
you  relish  the  idea  of  seeing  little  Fred  arrive 
at  man's  estate  with  crooked  front  teeth,  when 
by  the  outlay  of  a  few  paltry  dollars  at  the 
present  time  they  could  be  made  regular  as  a 
palisade  ?  Are  the  sons  of  Tom,  Dick,  and 
Harry  to  be  sent  to  a  summer  school  in  the 
Adirondacks  and  ours  made  to  breathe  sea- 
air  all  the  year  round  ?  Is  little  Josephine  to 
go  without  a  kodak  when  her  dearest  friend, 
Polly  Dolly  Adeline,  is  pressing  the  button 


86  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

from  morning  until  night?  Assuredly  not. 
Against  luxuries  we  turn  a  stony  countenance ; 
but  who  will  deny  that  warm  underwear,  regu 
lar  front  teeth,  occasional  change  of  atmosphere, 
and  development  of  the  artistic  instincts  are 
not  necessaries  which  parents  are  bound  to 
provide  for  their  offspring  ? 

When  destiny  finally  matched  our  two  boys 
with  a  sister  apiece — not  twins,  thank  you — 
discussion  between  us  as  to  whether  sons  or 
daughters  are  more  to  be  desired  became  in  a 
certain  sense  futile  for  Josephine  and  me  ;  and 
yet  the  theme  is  one  which  crops  up  between 
us  with  tolerable  frequency  from  the  very  rea 
son  that  we  are  confronted  by  both  horns  of  the 
dilemma. 

"  I  don't  think  I  should  have  had  any  par 
ticular  preference  at  the  beginning  for  a  boy 
rather  than  a  girl  but  for  that  horrid  man," 
said  Josephine,  on  one  occasion.  "  Of  course 
when  he  tried  to  make  out  that  this  was  a  girl 
street,  I  became  just  crazy  for  a  son.  Perhaps  it 
is  rather  more  satisfactory  on  the  whole  to  have 
a  boy  at  the  head  of  the  family ;  he  is  impressed 
early  with  a  sense  of  responsibility,  and  that  he 
must  look  after  his  sisters  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
However,  it  doesn't  matter  very  much  which 


A  MARRIED  MAN  87 

comes  first,  provided  you  have  both.  But  if 
you  could  only  have  one  kind  and  you  had 
to  choose  which  (fortunately  it  is  decided 
for  us)  I  should  find  frightful  difficulty  in 
making  up  my  mind.  For  your  sake,  Fred,  I 
suppose  I  should  choose  a  boy.  I  know  it  is 
popularly  asserted  that  fathers  are  fonder  of 
their  daughters  than  their  sons;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  nearly  every  man  has  a  sneaking 
vanity  to  preserve  the  family  name  from  dying 
out,  which  would  determine  him  if  it  came  to 
a  choice." 

"  It  might  be  preferable  to  have  the  family 
name  die  out  rather  than  to  see  it  dragged  in 
the  dust.  There  is  always  that  risk  with  sons," 
I  answered,  with  sententious  gravity.  "In  our 
walk  of  life  a  girl  cannot  readily  misbehave 
herself  to  any  appreciable  extent." 

"  You  would  not,  however,  allow  anyone  else 
to  suggest  the  possibility  that  your  boys  could 
turn  out  badly,"  said  Josephine.  "On  the 
contrary,  although  you  have  never  said  so  in 
precise  terms,  I  am  sure  you  will  be  disap 
pointed  in  your  heart  of  hearts  if  one,  or  both 
of  them,  does  not  prove  very  remarkable — a 
Michael  Angelo,  or  a  Darwin,  or  President  of 
the  United  States." 


88  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

"  Rather  than  see  a  son  of  mine  President  of 
the  United  States —  -"  I  began,  diverted  from 
our  theme  by  the  invocation  of  the  standard 
spectral  hope  which  is  used  to  prod  the  imagi 
nation  of  every  youth  in  the  country ;  but  Jo 
sephine  interrupted  the  ancestral  curse  trem 
bling  on  my  lips,  by  remarking  succinctly : 

"  Nonsense.  You  don't  believe  a  word  you 
are  going  to  say,  Fred."  She  continued,  with 
a  reflective  air,  "  I  admit  that  girls  are  not  lia 
ble  to  fail  in  business,  or  forge,  or  drink  more 
wine  than  is  good  for  them.  On  the  other 
hand,  men  can  take  care  of  themselves ;  but 
what  is  there  more  pitiable  than  a  decayed 
gentlewoman  ?  It  is  all  very  well  to  consider 
the  enlarged  sphere  for  feminine  activity,  and 
try  to  comfort  one's  self  by  the  thought  that 
they  can  be  hospital  nurses,  or  amanuenses,  or 
reporters,  or  doctors,  or  even  theatrical  man 
agers — I  am  confident  that  my  girls  would  shine 
in  any  of  these  capacities  if  it  were  absolutely 
necessary — but  I,  for  one,  can't  persuade  my 
self  that  they  are  intended  for  that  sort  of 
thing,  and  I  am  morally  certain  that  you  men 
will  see  that  they  do  not  grow  rich  and  famous 
too  rapidly  in  the  work  to  which  they  are 
called.  It  may  be  that  my  great-great-grand- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  89 

daughter  will  be  President — not  *  lady  '  Presi 
dent,  if  you  please — of  the  United  States.  But 
that  is  a  long  way  off,  and  in  the  meantime  I 
should  prefer  to  have  my  daughters  and  their 
daughters  protected  by  a  bulwark  of  railroad 
shares  from  the  cold  world  of  competition  in 
manual  or  mental  labor.  Decayed  gentlewomen 
were  pitiful  enough  when  they  were  able  to  eke 
out  their  livelihood  by  putting  up  peaches  and 
plums  and  strawberries;  but  now  that  pre 
serves — and  really  just  as  good  preserves — are 
put  up  at  factories  by  the  wholesale,  they  must 
starve  if  they  stay  at  home.  Oh,  Fred,  I  some 
times  think  that  you  ought  to  alter  your  will 
so  us  to  leave  everything  to  the  two  girls ;  but 
then  I  recollect  how  important  it  is  also  that 
boys  should  have  a  little  something,  so  that 
they  need  not  sacrifice  their  natural  gifts  and 
tastes  to  the  exigencies  of  bread  and  butter. 
A  few  hundred  dollars  a  year  might  be  the  de 
termining  factor  which  would  enable  one  of  them 
to  become  the  second  Michael  Angelo  or  Dar 
win  of  your  fancy,  instead  of  a  humdrum  bank 
president,  or  lawyer,  or  doctor." 

Although  I,  for  one,  have  not  quite  such  in 
flated  notions  regarding  the  evolution  of  my 
sons  as  my  wife  would  make  out,  nevertheless 


90  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

the  married  man  who  has  renounced  delusions 
on  his  own  account  feels  at  liberty  to  indulge 
his  imagination  to  some  extent  on  the  subject 
of  his  offspring.  Not  merely  the  married  man, 
but  the  married  woman  also.  Whatever  Jo 
sephine  may  asseverate  to  the  contrary,  I  am 
confident  that  she  cherishes  quite  as  ardent 
hopes  as  I  on  the  score  both  of  her  boys  and  of 
her  girls.  We  may  be  a  pair  of  fools,  but  we 
cannot  avoid  a  secret  conviction  that  little  Fred 
has  a  remarkable  head  and  brow  which  suggest 
the  contour  of  a  Webster,  and  that  our  second 
daughter  is  likely  to  take  drawing-rooms  by 
storm  if  her  features  preserve  their  present 
exquisite  regularity  until  maidenhood.  Then 
take  our  younger  boy.  I  admit  that  he  has 
neither  the  masterly  physiognomy  nor  the  com 
manding  aspect  of  his  brother,  but  it  is  from 
just  such  habits  of  absorbing  industry  and  from 
just  such  original  traits  that  the  capacity  of  a 
— a — well,  call  it  a  Michael  Angelo  or  a  Darwin 
and  be  done  with  it — is  developed.  Then  again 
there  is  our  elder  daughter.  She  could  not  be 
called  handsome  to-day,  perhaps,  but  those 
who  deem  her  plain  and  say  that  she  is  all  legs 
and  arms  may  well  afford  to  bear  in  mind  the 
story  of  the  Ugly  Duckling  which  from  being 


A  MARRIED  MAN  91 

the  butt  of  the  barn-yard  proved  to  be  a  swan. 
And  even  if  she  fail  to  be  strictly  beautiful,  a 
girl  with  her  serene  intelligence  and  vitalizing 
enthusiasm  is  almost  certain  to  make  her  mark 
in  this  era  of  feminine  progression. 

When  comparing  mine  with  other  children 
I  freely  confess  to  a  sensation  of  pride,  which 
Josephine  has  assured  me  is  common  to 
parents  in  general.  She  declares  that  our 
opposite  neighbor,  who  has  seven  girls— a  list 
less,  lanky  set — is  not  a  whit  less  proud  of  his 
progeny  than  I  of  mine.  I  could  scarcely  be 
lieve  this  to  be  the  case  until  I  happened  to 
condole  with  him  one  day,  when  we  were 
walking  down-town  together,  on  the  size  of  his 
family  and  the  circumstance  that  he  had  no 
sons.  To  my  astonishment  he  replied  : 

"  Bless  your  heart !  I  wouldn't  part  with 
one  of  them.  And  between  you  and  me  and 
the  post,  my  dear  sir,  there  are  not  seven  other 
girls  their  peers  in  the  entire  country.  Boys? 
If  I  had  a  son  I  should  live  in  constant  dread 
that  he  would  blow  his  head  off  or  be  drowned 
while  he  was  growing  up,  and  when  he  was 
grown  up  that  he  would  go  to  the  demnition 
bow-wows.  Boys  ?  No,  thank  you,  neighbor  ?  " 

Two  or  three  rebuffs  of  this  kind  have  in- 


92  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

clined  me  to  believe  that  whatever  the  predi 
lections  of  parents  beforehand,  they  accept  the 
inevitable  with  a  fortitude  which  soon  becomes 
fond  devotion  to  their  fate.  I  have  rarely  seen 
seven  less  attractive  girls  ;  yet  when  I  say  so 
to  my  wife  she  is  apt  to  taunt  me  with  the 
insinuation  that  our  friend  across  the  way 
probably  entertains  similar  views  on  the  sub 
ject  of  our  darlings. 

"  But  in  the  first  place,  Josephine,  we  have 
four,  two  boys  and  two  girls — an  ideal  com 
bination — and  he  has  seven  long,  lanky  girls, 
and  no  boys  at  all." 

"  He  has  told  you  plainly  that  he  would  not 
part  with  one  of  them  for  the  world,  and  that 
he  abhors  the  sight  of  a  boy,  and  he  is  thor 
oughly  in  earnest  in  what  he  says." 

"  Surely,  my  dear,  you  don't  maintain  that 
there  is  any  comparison  in  point  of  looks,  man 
ners,  or  brains  between  our  children  and  his  ?  " 

"  Not  the  slightest,  Fred.  You  know  my 
opinion  regarding  those  girls  perfectly  well; 
but  you  can't  blame  him,  poor  man,  for  not 
seeing  that  they  are  an  unattractive,  homely 
set,  any  more  than  people  would  be  disposed 
to  blame  you  because  you  are  convinced  that 
little  Fred  will  some  day  set  the  world  afire." 


A  MARRIED  MAN  93 

"  But  he  is  likely  to  ;  or — er — if  not  to  set 
it  afire  exactly,  to — 

"  Of  course  he  will,  the  darling  !  "  broke  in 
my  wife,  with  a  bubbling  laugh.  "  You  are  too 
delicious  for  anything,  Fred.  You  insist  not 
only  tliat  your  geese  are  all  swans,  but  you 
expect  the  world  to  agree  with  you.  Now  I 
am  just  as  confident  as  you  that  our  children 
are  remarkable,  and  no  amount  of  argument 
could  abate  a  jot  or  tittle  my  faith  in  their 
future ;  but  at  the  same  time  I  have  not  the 
hardihood  to  demand  that  other  people  should 
take  the  same  view.  You  are  a  veritable 
parental  ostrich,  Fred ;  quite  as  complete  a 
one  as  your  friend  across  the  street,  who  is 
very  likely  at  this  moment  to  be  priding  him 
self  on  the  fact  that  none  of  his  seven  have 
red  hair,  and  pitying  us  because  David  and 
Josie  have  conspicuously  gory  locks." 

"  Pooh  !  "  I  answered,  stiffly.  "  Josie's  hair 
is  a  beautiful  shade  of  auburn ;  any  one  of  his 
girls  might  be  proud  to  have  hair  like  it.  And 
as  for  David's,  it  is  a  good,  honest  color,  if  it  is 
red." 

"  There  you  go  again,  my  dear.  So  are  blue 
and  green  honest  colors,  and  yet  you  could 
scarcely  call— 


HNIVERSI 


94  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

"  Pshaw !  "  I  interrupted,  with  a  slightly 
irritated  air.  Even  Josephine  has  a  way  of 
arguing  at  times  which  is  decidedly  nettle- 
some. 

Faults  ?  Imperfections  ?  There  are  days 
when  the  most  completely  infatuated  father 
looks  gloomily  askance  at  his  offspring ;  when 
it  seems  to  him  that  their  disadvantageous 
points  stick  out  so  prominently  as  to  over 
shadow  their  attractions,  and  he  almost  wishes 
they  had  never  been  born.  A  cold  in  the 
head,  an  unbecoming  costume,  or  nothing  at 
all  will  transform  my  namesake  into  a  stolidT 
looking  little  ruffian  whom  I  find  difficulty  in 
recognizing ;  and  as  Josephine  says,  the  chil 
dren  are  sure  to  look  their  worst  when  you 
wish  them  to  look  their  best.  She  declares 
that  I  always  select  the  most  unpropitious 
times  for  exhibiting  them ;  for  instance,  just 
after  they  have  finished  supper  or  been  on 
their  hands  and  knees  in  the  nursery  all  the 
afternoon,  and  she  is  disposed  to  rate  me  for 
exhibiting  them  at  any  time  on  the  ground 
that  nine  people  out  of  ten  who  come  to  the 
house  would  prefer  not  to  see  them.  However 
this  may  be,  I  have  noticed  that,  whereas  they 
will  be  excruciatingly  polite  to  any  chance 


A  MARRIED  MAN  95 

person  who  happens  in,  they  seem  to  take  a 
fiendish  satisfaction  in  ignoring  or  merely 
grunting  at  your  bosom  friend  or  the  judge  of 
the  Supreme  Court  whom  you  have  asked  to 
dinner.  And  if,  by  some  happy  freak,  they 
acquit  themselves  creditably  so  far  as  manners 
are  concerned,  is  not  one  invariably  tempt 
ed  to  apologize  for  little  Fred's  suddenly  de 
veloped  squint,  or  Winona's  unusual  lack  of 
color  ? 

It  is  on  the  occasions  when  the  children  are 
looking  and  behaving  their  worst  that  visitors 
are  most  apt  to  call  attention  to  their  resem 
blance  either  to  my  wife  or  me.  However  much 
you  may  inwardly  resent  such  an  imputation  at 
the  moment,  it  is  not  easy  in  these  days,  when 
the  law  of  heredity  is  on  everyone's  lips,  to  es 
cape  noting  with  considerable  horror,  as  time 
goes  on,  the  reproduction  of  your  own  or  your 
mother-in-law's  peculiarities.  When  Joseph 
ine  says  that  little  Fred  will  not  sit  up  straight 
at  table  because  he  inherits  my  rooted  tendency 
to  sprawl,  I  am  apt  to  reply,  if  in  a  pesky  mood, 
that  David  gets  his  red  hair  from  his  maternal 
great-grandmother.  In  this  matter  of  inher 
ited  traits,  be  it  said,  a  man  can  bear  with  far 
more  complacency  the  reappearance  of  his  own 


96  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

ancestral  failings,  than  those  which  appertain 
to  his  wife's  family  tree.  Though  there  may 
be  room  for  argument  as  to  whether  little  Fred's 
furious  temper  (he  had  a  way,  when  small,  of 
lying  on  his  back  and  kicking  at  the  least  prov 
ocation)  was  transmitted  through  Josephine's 
blood  or  mine,  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt 
that  our  eldest  daughter  derives  her  double 
chin  from  the  old  lady,  my  wife's  great  aunt, 
whose  portrait  in  a  turban  hangs  in  our  dining- 
room.  If  it  be  tolerably  dispiriting  to  note 
one's  own  foibles  coming  to  light  in  the  second 
generation,  it  is  far  more  so  to  encounter  idio 
syncrasies  with  which  you  have  no  association, 
and  for  which,  therefore,  you  keep  no  tender 
spot  in  your  heart.  I  have  a  fellow  sympathy 
with  little  Fred's  tendency  to  sprawl,  and  his 
disinclination  to  get  up  in  time  for  breakfast ; 
but  I  tell  Josephine,  when  she  accounts  for 
Winona's  abhorrence  of  oysters,  by  the  tradition 
that  two  of  her  own  aunts  could  not  abide  shell 
fish  in  any  form,  that  they  were  a  precious  pair 
of  donkeys. 

"If  they  were  your  aunts,  though,"  said 
Josephine  to  me  one  day  with  some  warmth, 
"  you  would  think  it  the  most  natural  thing  in 
the  world,  just  as  you  always  grandiloquently 


A  MARRIED  MAN  97 

describe  your  ancestor  who  used  to  execute 
people  as  '  the  sheriff  of  the  county,'  whereas, 
if  he  had  been  mine,  you  would  be  sure  to  speak 
of  him  as  a  common  hangman." 

There  are  occasions  when  Josephine  betrays 
a  degree  of  excitement  disproportionate  to  the 
necessities  of  the  situation. 
7 


VII. 

IEETALIATED  on  my  wife  for  naming  lit 
tle  Fred  after  me  by  naming  Josie  after 
her.  Josephine  declared  I  might  talk  until  I 
was  black  in  the  face,  but  she  never  would  con 
sent  to  name  her  eldest  son  after  anyone  but 
his  father.  "When  I  referred  to  the  confusion 
which  would  result  from  the  presence  in  the 
house  of  two  people  with  the  same  name,  she 
tossed  her  head  and  said  that  it  would  be  easy 
to  obviate  that  by  calling  me  Frederick  instead 
of  Fred.  She  added  that  Frederick  was  much 
more  dignified  and  appropriate  to  the  father  of 
a  family,  and  that  she  had  been  intending  to 
make  the  substitution  ever  since  we  were  mar 
ried. 

To  tell  the  truth,  I  did  not  relish  the  threat 
ened  change.  When  a  man  has  answered  to  a 
name  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  it 
is  rather  appalling  to  be  informed  that  if  he 
answers  to  it  henceforth  he  is  likely  to  con- 


REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN    99 

found  himself  with  an  infant.  On  the  previous 
occasions  when  Josephine  had  solemnly  de 
clared  her  intention  to  exorcise  Fred,  I  had 
smiled  inwardly,  feeling  sure  that  she  would 
forget  to  begin  ;  but  it  was  obvious  to  me  now, 
that,  for  the  sake  of  baby,  she  was  prepared 
to  school  her  tongue  and  the  tongues  of  all  my 
relations  and  friends  in  the  execution  of  her 
fell  purpose.  Imagine  Harry  Bolles  and  other 
kindred  spirits  calling  me  stiff,  august  Frede 
rick  !  I  vowed  that  this  should  not  be  brought 
to  pass,  and  having  become  convinced  that  it 
was  simply  a  question  of  time  when  my  son 
and  heir  would  be  christened  after  me,  I  gra 
ciously  consented  to  send  for  the  clergyman  on 
the  distinct  understanding  that  I  was  to  remain 
Fred  to  the  end  of  time,  confusion  to  the  con 
trary  notwithstanding. 

Our  second  boy  was  christened  David,  after 
his  maternal  grandfather.  When  our  elder 
daughter  was  born  I  proclaimed  firmly  my 
purpose  to  name  her  for  her  mother.  Jose 
phine  squirmed  like  an  eel,  metaphorically 
speaking,  at  the  suggestion,  and  I  discovered 
for  the  first  time  that  she  had  detested  her  own 
name  from  early  childhood.  She  argued  that 
there  was  no  sense  in  calling  a  girl  after  her 


100  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

mother,  for  the  reason  that  no  advantage  of 
association,  as  in  the  case  of  a  father,  could 
possibly  be  derived  from  it,  and  that  she  would 
have  sufficient  trouble,  as  time  went  on,  in 
keeping  my  underwear  distinct  from  little 
Fred's  without  being  confronted  by  a  similar 
difficulty  on  the  feminine  side  of  the  house. 

"  On  the  other  hand,"  I  murmured,  with  an 
accession  of  sentiment  which  brought  a  blush 
to  her  cheeks  despite  her  predisposition  to 
frown,  "  my  dearest  wish  is  to  see  another  Jo 
sephine  in  the  flesh,  complete  even  to  the  name. 
Moreover,  as  you  have  had  full  scope  twice 
already,  it  is  only  fair  that  I  should  be  allowed 
for  once  to  carry  out  my  own  ideas." 

So  Josephine  she  was  christened,  though  we 
call  her  Josie,  and  I  have  very  little  doubt  that 
my  wife  in  the  depths  of  her  inner  conscious 
ness  would  have  been  bitterly  disappointed  if 
the  child  had  been  given  any  other  name. 

When  number  four  appeared — our  second 
daughter — Josephine  declared  that  she  was 
tired  of  family  names  and  wished  something 
out  of  the  common  run.  After  mooning  about 
the  house  for  a  day  or  two  with  pencil  and 
paper,  she  handed  me  the  following  list  em 
bodying  the  fruit  of  her  cogitation :  Ethel, 


A  MARRIED  MAN  101 

Eiiid,  Corinne,  Dorothy,  Gladys,  Margery, 
Millicent,  Annabel,  and  Letitia.  She  spared 
me,  however,  the  necessity  of  criticism  by  stat 
ing  that  not  one  of  them  would  do  ;  that  every 
other  child  nowadays  was  named  Gladys,  Dor 
othy,  or  Margery ;  that  Ethel  did  not  hit  her 
fancy,  and  that  the  rest  were  hideous. 

"Why  don't  you  call  her  plain  Mary?"  I 
asked,  by  way  of  a  suggestion. 

"  The  child  will  be  plain  enough,  I  dare  say," 
said  my  wife,  dryly.  "  I  am  quite  aware,"  she 
added,  "  that  we  shall  be  in  a  certain  sense 
gambling  with  divine  Providence  in  giving  the 
darling  a  conspicuous,  individualizing  name, 
for  she  may  grow  up  commonplace-looking  or 
a  fright;  but  we  must  take  some  chances  in 
life,  mustn't  we,  Fred  ?  " 

"Either  Rosamond,  Eleanor,  or  Guendolen 
is  appropriate  to  a  beauty,"  said  I,  with  non 
committal  subserviency. 

"  I  should  prefer  something  more  original. 
A  man  with  your  training  in  the  classics  ought 
to  be  able  to  rattle  off  half  a  dozen  that  would 
be  suitable.  Try,  dear,  to  think  of  some." 

Having  obediently  ransacked  the  recesses  of 
my  mental  store-house,  and  consulted  on  the  sly 
a  mythological  dictionary  and  the  Bible,  in- 


102  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

eluding  the  Apocrypha,  I  reported  progress  as 
follows :  "  Ceres,  Naomi,  Diana,  Jael,  Andro 
meda,  Niobe,  and  Cleopatra." 

" '  Like  Niobe  all  tears,' "  murmured  Jo 
sephine,  reflectively.  "  They  would  bother  her 
life  out  by  quoting  that  at  her,  I  suppose.  I 
had  thought  of  Pallas.  Why  wouldn't  Pallas 
do,  Fred  ?  I  don't  know  a  Pallas,  and  it  sounds 
rather  distinguished.  As  I  remember  her,  she 
was  entirely  respectable.  Cleopatra  is  pretty, 
but  the  trouble  is  that  she  wasn't  entirely  re 
spectable." 

"  "Why  Pallas  rather  than  Pocahontas  ?  "  I 
asked,  with  sober  mien  but  sardonic  purport. 

"Pocahontas?  "screamed  my  darling.  But 
presently  she  added,  with  a  musing  air :  "A 
really  pretty  Indian  name  wouldn't  be  bad  at 
all.  Minnehaha?  No,  that's  too  hackneyed." 

"  Tuscarora  ?  "  I  hazarded.  "  A  little  too 
bold  and  expansive,  perhaps." 

"  Yes,  dear,  I  think  that  '  Tuscarora '  would 
frighten  away  the  average  suitor." 

"Cacouna,  then?" 

"Ugh!" 

"Oneida?" 

"  I  don't  like  it." 

"  Winona  ?     There  !     Why  wouldn't  that  be 


A  MARRIED  MAN  103 

just  the  thing  ?  It  is  picturesque  and  original, 
and  to  my  ears  decidedly  fetching." 

"  Winona  ?  "  queried  Josephine,  in  a  pen 
sive  tone  which  suggested  that  it  had  rather 
caught  her  fancy.  "  It's  queer,  Fred,  but  it 
is  fetching  and  picturesque  as  you  say,  and 
decidedly  original.  I  should  like  to  sleep 
on  it." 

On  the  fourth  morning  after  this  she  in 
formed  me,  with  a  beatific  smile,  that  the 
matter  was  settled ;  she  had  heard  a  mysteri 
ous  voice  in  her  sleep,  on  three  consecutive 
nights,  cry  aloud — "  Winona — Winona — Wi 
nona." 

"  I  regard  that  as  the  interposition  of  Provi 
dence,"  she  added,  "  and  if  the  child  grows  up 
homely  and  puny  and  utterly  out  of  keeping 
with  her  name,  I  shall  consider  that  I  have 
been  very  shabbily  treated  by  fate." 

It  is  amazing  how  soon  the  pig-like,  rubi 
cund  objects  of  parental  solicitude,  which  erst 
bent  upon  you  their  steel-blue  eyes  and  wailed, 
develop  a  marked  personality  of  their  own.  The 
married  man  with  sons  of  four  or  five  years  is 
likely  to  suffer  himself  to  be  jabbed  with  a 
yard-stick  in  his  bath,  morning  after  morning, 
under  the  guise  of  a  hippopotamus  at  bay,  in 


104  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

order  to  cater  to  the  sporting  tastes  of  one, 
and  to  croon  the  same  ditty  a  dozen  times  in 
monotonous  succession  for  the  sake  of  edifying 
the  lyrical  instincts  of  another.  What  spinster 
can  appreciate  a  mother's  joy  at  the  discovery 
that  her  doll  of  flesh  and  blood  has  teeth  like 
everybody  else  ?  What  bachelor  can  under 
stand  the  complacency  of  the  father  who  di 
vines  from  the  first  articulate  word  that  his 
heir  is  not  completely  an  idiot  ?  Close  upon 
the  heels  of  evolution  follows  the  bubbling  re 
frain  of  parental  ecstasy.  You  stand  amazed 
with  delight  before  the  first  witticism  and  dub 
it  clever  enough  for  Life  or  Punch  ;  you  scan 
with  dancing  eyes  the  bird's  nest  of  clay  be 
stowed  upon  you  as  a  birthday  present,  and 
whisper  to  your  wife  that  the  Liliputian  do 
nor  has  a  sculptor's  eye  and  fingers. 

Simultaneously  with  this  spirit  of  wonder  at 
the  normal  development  of  your  offspring,  and 
with  your  cognizance  of  the  individuality  of 
each,  arises  within  you  the  desire  and  almost 
rabid  intention  to  equip  them  as  completely  as 
possible  for  the  struggle  of  existence,  to  dis 
guise  and  fortify  the  weak  spots  left  by  des 
tiny,  and  to  foster  the  talents  with  which  Dame 
Nature  has  endowed  them.  You  are  deter- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  105 

mined  that  the  mistakes  committed  in  your 
own  education  shall  not  be  duplicated  in  theirs, 
and  bent  on  acting  with  consummate  wisdom, 
you  consult  current  authorities  on  child  culture 
and  lend  an  alert  ear  to  every  suggestion  in  the 
line  of  hygienic  or  pedagogic  reform.  You 
purse  your  lips  in  the  throes  of  indecision  as 
to  whether  or  not  baby  shall  wear  shoes  and 
socks.  You  cite  having  worn  them  yourself, 
forsooth,  and  that  your  own  feet,  save  for  a  pet 
com  or  two,  have  been,  and  are,  to  all  intents 
and  all  purposes,  available,  and  you  indulge  in 
horrible  imaginings  on  the  score  of  influenza 
and  lockjaw ;  but  you  sigh  when  your  wife 
asks  if  you  set  yourself  up  as  wiser  than  the 
doctors,  who  insist  that  the  young  should  re 
turn  to  the  customs  of  nature,  and  like  as  not, 
before  another  week  you  are  leading  your  pre 
cious  toddler  barefoot  along  the  flinty  pave 
ment  with  a  superior  smile.  What  though  you 
have  been  taught  to  spell  cat  c-a-t !  Do  you 
not  bow  your  head  to  the  superior  wisdom  of 
the  age,  which  asserts  that  it  should  be  spelt 
cah-ah- te,  and  rejoice  that  your  young  hope 
fuls  are  not  being  outstripped  by  their  con 
temporaries  ?  Yea,  verily  ;  and  though  you 
yourself  could  read  when  you  were  five,  you 


106  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

even  humbly  subscribe  to  the  doctrine  that  if  a 
child  reads  at  eight  it  is  time  enough,  provided 
that  until  then  he  is  beguiled  by  grewsome 
kindergarten  carols  and  the  manufacture  of 
paper  patch-work  for  the  presentation  to  an 
admiring  household  at  Christmas-tide.  Pain 
fully  conscious  that  you  have  failed  to  make 
the  most  of  your  own  life,  you  are  eager  to  af 
ford  your  children  every  opportunity  to  im 
prove  upon  it,  albeit  at  the  sacrifice  of  your 
most  stalwart  and  fundamental  convictions. 

What  parent  would  restore  the  days  when  a 
father  was  addressed  on  paper  as  "  Honored 
Sir,"  and  the  offending  scion  of  his  stock  slunk 
up  the  stairs  in  apprehension  of  the  rod  ?  Not 
I,  for  one.  And  yet,  as  Josephine  says,  it  is 
not  exactly  pleasant  to  be  snuffed  out  at  forty 
by  the  superior  wisdom  of  the  rising  genera 
tion,  even  though  that  wisdom  be  tempered 
by  affectionate  toleration  of  nominal  control. 
Nevertheless,  after  you  have  grown  accus 
tomed  to  the  idea  that  you  are  comparatively 
speaking  an  ignoramus,  and  that  your  ex 
perience  of  life  is  to  be  rated  merely  as  so 
much  fustiness,  is  not  abundant  satisfaction 
to  be  derived  from  the  pride  one  takes  in 
the  superseding  knowledge  of  one's  progeny? 


A  MARRIED  MAN  107 

Even  though  you  may  feebly  protest  at  the 
ruthless  sweeping  away  of  established  codes 
by  the  youth  of  twelve  and  the  miss  of  fifteen, 
you  feel  puffed  up  by  the  amazing  enlighten 
ment  of  your  sons  and  daughters.  As  time 
goes  on  you  positively  glow  with  satisfaction 
at  each  successive  display  of  information  or 
theory  which  controverts  the  truths  upon  which 
you  have  acted  all  your  days.  You  scratch 
your  head  and  learn  with  wondering  delight 
that  William  Tell  was  a  mythical  humbug,  that 
the  novels  of  Sir  Walter  are  rather  a  bore  than 
otherwise,  and  that  all  illness  is  hallucination. 
If,  tempted  to  defend  the  wisdom  of  the  past, 
you  proffer  the  testimony  of  books,  you  yield 
respectfully  to  the  triumphant  plea  of  a  newer 
edition  or  a  later  authority,  wherein  the  facts 
or  arguments  on  which  you  relied  are  contra 
dicted  or  exploded.  What  glorious  opportuni 
ties  are  given  you  to  examine  and  rehabilitate 
your  moral  standards  by  the  searching  light  of 
modern  philosophy  !  You  are  informed  by  lips 
on  which  the  down  of  manhood  is  scarcely  per 
ceptible,  that  competition  in  trade  is  akin  to 
crime ;  that  the  proletariat  should  be  restrained 
by  legislation  from  generating  children  faster 
than  it  can  provide  for  them,  and  that,  owing 


108  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

to  the  failing  powers  of  the  sun,  our  world  will 
in  a  comparatively  short  period  become  too  cold 
to  inhabit.  And  if,  under  the  spur  of  a  whim 
sical  mood,  you  venture  to  insinuate  that  this 
world  has  long  been  a  cold  one  for  the  average 
inhabitant,  the  sad,  sickly  smile  with  which 
your  witticism  is  received  convicts  you  of 
levity  and  a  disposition  to  make  light  of 
serious  subjects.  Indeed,  there  is  something 
charmingly  pathetic,  even  if  occasionally  irri 
tating,  in  the  tacit  criticism  of  your  whole 
course  in  life  which  you  read  written  on  the 
grave  countenances  of  your  sons  and  daughters. 
Pathetic,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  mirth-pro 
voking,  in  spite  of  more  or  less  justice,  by 
virtue  of  the  glorious  self-delusion.  You  are 
in  their  eyes  the  fond  and  loving  father,  but 
equally  the  humdrum  practical  man  of  affairs 
governed  by  workaday  considerations,  and  void 
of  poetic  impulse  save  mere  domesticity.  Un 
like  them  you  have  never  tried  to  probe  the 
secrets  of  eternity  and  grappled  with  the  fire 
spirits  of  thought.  To  you  the  moon  has  been 
but  a  night-lamp  and  no  inspirer  of  mighty 
resolutions  and  world-conquering  hopes.  You 
have  lived  always  as  now,  a  struggler  for  bread 
and  butter,  a  creature  of  dull  routine,  getting 


A  MARRIED  MAN  109 

np  and  lying  down,  eating  and  drinking,  spend 
ing  and  saving,  thermometer  and  watch  con 
sulting,  with  a  tedious  regularity  of  which  they 
do  not  intend  to  be  guilty.  They  adore  you 
for  the  loving  care  you  have  lavished  upon 
them  and  the  opportunities  you  have  given 
them,  but  their  eyes  let  you  understand,  though 
they  would  fain  spare  your  feelings,  that 
whereas  your  feet  have  ever  clung  to  earth, 
their  look  is  fixed  upon  the  stars.  Glorious 
self-delusion  which,  even  while  it  castigates, 
tickles  the  parental  diaphragm!  Upon  the 
stars !  God  grant  that  their  look  never  swerve. 
Said  I  to  Josephine  one  evening,  as  we  were 
sitting  side  by  side  on  the  sofa  after  our  dar 
ling  critics  had  gone  to  bed — "  One  would  sup 
pose  that  you  and  I,  in  the  bygone  days,  had 
never  sailed  the  seas  of  fantasy  with  the  Cor 
sair,  or  apostrophized  solitude  on  the  moun 
tain-top  with  Childe  Harold ;  that  we  had 
bowed  in  the  dust  before  ancestral  dogma,  and 
clung  to  the  belief  that  the  'Animals  went  in 
two  by  two,  the  elephant  and  the  kangaroo ; ' 
that  philanthropy  was  a  strange  word  to  us  ; 
that  we  had  revelled  in  defective  drainage,  and 
that  we  did  not  kiss  each  other  when  we  were 
engaged." 


110  REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN 

"  Poor  little  dears,"  said  my  wife,  "  how 
much  they  have  still  to  learn  !  It  would  break 
their  hearts  if  they  had  to  know  now  that  in 
the  end  they  would  be  only  just  a  little  better 
than  we.  Do  you  remember  how  you  used  to 
repeat : 

' '  '  Not  once  or  twice  in  our  rough  island-story 
The  path  of  duty  was  the  way  to  glory. 
He  that  walks  it  only  thirsting 
For  the  right  and  learns  to  deaden 
Love  of  self,  before  his  journey  closes 
He  shall  see  the  stubborn  thistle  bursting 
Into  glossy  purples  which  outredden 
All  voluptuous  garden-roses.'  " 

"  And  yet,"  said  I,  "I  am  only  a  hard-work 
ing  and  tolerably  impecunious  lawyer." 


VIH. 

THE  married  man  with  a  family  who  is  de 
pendent  on  the  income  from  his  labors  for 
a  living,  is  necessarily  a  creature  of  routine. 
Day  in  day  out  he  rises  from  bed,  hones 
his  razor,  takes  his  bath,  swallows  his  break 
fast,  reads  the  newspaper,  and  hies  him  down 
town  with  the  monotonous  exactness  of  a  pen 
dulum.  He  is  engrossed  by  the  cares  of  busi 
ness  until  four  or  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
and  in  the  brief  interim  between  his  closing 
time  and  his  dinner  hour  he  walks,  rides,  or 
frequents  the  gymnasium  for  exercise,  plays 
whist,  visits  a  picture  gallery  and  the  book 
stores,  pays  a  call  or  attends  a  committee 
meeting  in  the  interest  of  political  or  charita 
ble  reform,  and  reaches  home  barely  in  time 
to  become  a  bear  for  the  amusement  of  his 
children  before  they  drop  off  to  sleep.  In  the 
evening  he  dines  out  now  and  then,  and  now 
and  then  he  takes  his  wife  to  .the  theatre  or  a 


112  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

concert ;  but  ordinarily,  after  exhausting  the 
newspaper  at  home  and  cutting  the  pages  of 
the  current  magazines,  he  settles  down  to  read 
the  newest  volume  of  biography  or  travel,  and 
is  aroused  by  his  wife  an  hour  later  on  the  plea 
that  if  he  sleeps  longer  he  will  lie  awake  at 
night. 

It  is  only  on  Sundays  and  holidays  that  the 
busy  man  of  affairs  escapes  from  the  clutches 
of  inexorable  custom,  and  even  these  respites 
from  habit  are  so  fleeting  that  he  has  barely 
begun  to  realize  that  he  is  free  before  they 
have  passed  and  he  is  a  slave  again.  And  yet 
how  precious  in  his  regard,  in  spite  of  their 
limitations,  do  these  breathing  spells  from  rou 
tine  become  as  the  years  advance,  and  he  has 
grown  a  trifle  sober,  and  almost  imperceptibly 
gray !  There  are  the  baked  beans  and  fish- 
balls  of  New  England  to  begin  with,  to  en 
hance  the  comfort  of  his  late,  leisurely  break 
fast.  The  bits  of  Shakespeare  and  Shelley 
with  which,  stretched  at  his  ease,  he  refreshes 
the  dusty  dryness  of  his  spirit,  well  up  in  his 
memory  through  the  week,  and  until  another 
Thanksgiving  or  Decoration  Day  his  eyes  are 
brighter  for  their  glimpses  of  meadow  and  hil 
lock,  and  his  lungs  are  sounder  for  their  inspi- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  113 

ration  of  purer  air.  Does  he  not  begrudge  the 
passage  of  the  fly-swift  hours  during  which 
he  learns  to  know  his  little  ones  from  their 
own  lips,  when  out  of  sight  of  pavements  he 
wanders  with  them  through  the  wood,  or 
teaches  them  to  paddle  up  the  suburban 
stream  ?  Avaunt  the  Sunday  newspaper  with 
its  vampire  wings,  and  the  stuffy  club  with  its 
corrosive  sublimate  of  brandy  and  soda  !  He 
yearns  more  and  more  for  the  weekly  boon  of 
exchanging  the  paraphernalia  of  workaday  ex 
istence  for  the  simple  pleasures  of  loving  com 
radeship  with  his  family,  and  contact  with  na 
ture  so  far  as  she  is  to  be  encountered  within 
the  radius  of  a  sabbath  day's  journey. 

But  the  Mecca  of  the  married  man's  hopes 
is  his  annual  vacation,  so  called  from  the  deep 
ly-rooted  intention  in  his  soul  to  make  it  a 
yearly  occurrence  ;  but  which  is  ordinarily  in 
terfered  with  three  years  out  of  five,  notwith 
standing  his  proneness  to  prophesy  glibly  that 
other  men,  who  neglect  to  shut  their  desks  for 
a  reasonable  period  in  the  course  of  every 
twelvemonth,  will  surely  break  down.  It  is  a 
splendid  theory  for  other  men  to  act  upon,  and 
still  more  splendid  for  yourself  at  those  rare 
conjunctions  when  there  is  perfect  composure 
8 


114  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

alike  in  the  business  world  and  in  your  domes 
tic  household.  You  pack  your  rods  and  fever 
ishly  order  relays  of  groceries — and  then 
something  turns  up  which  obliges  you  to 
change  your  plans  and  put  off  until  another 
year  your  projected  outing  in  the  woods,  where 
not  even  a  telegram  will  reach  you.  It  may  be 
that  you  are  called  upon  to  act  as  the  assignee 
of  an  insolvent  estate,  the  pickings  from  which 
will  be  considerable,  or  that  the  children  break 
out  with  the  measles,  or  that  you  discover  the 
entire  drainage  system  of  your  house  to  be  in 
need  of  immediate  overhauling.  Under  any  of 
these  circumstances  a  married  man  must  stay 
at  home.  He  cannot  afford  to  neglect  his  bus 
iness,  or  to  desert  his  family  in  distress. 
Hence,  in  spite  of  his  rigid  principles,  he  is 
very  apt  to  persuade  himself  that,  by  passing 
the  summer  at  some  watering-place  accessible 
from  town  by  a  dusty,  daily  railway  journey,  he 
is  getting  all  the  vacation  he  needs,  especially 
because  he  reaches  home  occasionally,  on  the 
hottest  afternoons,  by  three  instead  of  five. 

1  'Are  you  all  ready  ?  "  you  inquire  of  your 
wife,  entering  her  room  in  a  flurry  some  day 
about  the  middle  of  June,  having  just  come 
post-haste  from  down  town. 


A  MARRIED  MAN  115 

"Are  we  really  going  ?  " 

"Going?  Of  course  we  are  going.  The 
carriage  will  be  at  the  door  in  less  than  an 
hour." 

"  Considering  that  I  have  had  to  pack  three 
times  during  the  past  fortnight  as  a  .conse 
quence  of  as  many  determinations  on  your  part 
which  you  have  subsequently  reconsidered, 
you  can  scarcely  blame  me  for  asking  the  ques 
tion.  I  shall  be  ready,  dear." 

"  We  are  going  without  fail  this  time.  I  have 
bought  the  tickets  and  telegraphed  for  guides, 
and  told  them  at  the  office  that  I  shan't  be 
back  for  three  wreeks.  Has  that  man  sent  my 
fishing  things  ?  " 

"A  great  many  things  have  come  for  you." 

You  cast  a  searching,  ruffled  glance  around 
you  at  the  profusion  of  packages  occupying  the 
lounge  and  the  floor,  and  realize  from  their 
respective  proportions  that  your  rubber  coat, 
a  new  bamboo  rod,  a  landing-net,  an  air- 
cushion  for  yourself  and  another  for  your 
darling,  some  groceries,  and  a  box  of  fly-oint 
ment  have  arrived.  Something  is  plainly 
missing,  however,  from  the  agonized  fashion 
in  which  you  drop  upon  your  knees  and  rum 
mage  through  the  bundles,  ripping  the  twino 


116  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

and  paper  from  each  with  increasing  de 
spair. 

"  Where  is  my  new  reel  and  line  ?  That 
brute  has  neglected  to  send  either  them  or  the 
trout  flies  I  ordered.  I  will  sue  him  ;  I " 

As  you  fulminate,  you  glare  at  your  wife 
with  the  ferocity  of  an  incensed  tiger ;  it  is  the 
sudden  guilty  quailing  of  her  eyes  which  checks 
your  objurgations.  At  the  same  moment  she 
stoops  and  ducks  her  head  to  the  base  of 
the  lounge,  and  after  groping  with  the  yard 
stick  produces  the  missing  articles,  remarking 
nonchalantly  that  the  baby  had  been  playing 
with  them,  and  must  have  pushed  them  under 
neath. 

You  are  so  glad  to  get  them  that  you  merely 
growl  inarticulately  while  you  undo  with  eager 
fingers  the  precious  package.  You  scrutinize 
the  dainty  rubber  reel  with  a  contented  smile, 
and  in  the  serenity  of  recovered  good  nature 
dart  at  the  box  of  fly-ointment,  and  insist  that 
your  wife  shall  take  a  smell  of - the  horrible- 
looking  mixture  of  pennyroyal  and  tar.  She 
declares  that  she  abominates  the  odor  and  that 
she  would  rather  be  bitten  by  all  the  flies  in 
creation  than  soil  her  skin  with  a  drop  of  it, 
and  you  answer  that  you  are  rather  fond  of 


A  MARRIED  MAN  117 

the  smell  and  that  it  is  really  remarkably  clean 
stuff. 

While  she  collects  and  packs  your  things 
you  go  flitting  about  the  room  with  a  brow 
wrinkled  by  the  conviction  that  you  have  for 
gotten  something  fundamental,  and  your  heart 
dances  like  a  daffodil  as  you  come  across  your 
tooth-brush  in  the  last  five  minutes.  Just  when 
the  carriage  is  at  the  door  you  bound  up  the 
stairs  two  steps  at  a  time  for  your  watch-key, 
which  you  have  left  on  your  pin-cushion,  and  you 
breathlessly  vow  on  your  return  that  you  will 
buy  a  stem-winding  watch  with  your  next  spare 
cash.  In  consequence  of  the  cabman's  an 
nouncement  that  you  have  no  time  to  lose  if 
you  wish  to  catch  the  train,  your  farewell  to 
your  children  in  the  hall  is  a  hasty  nip,  and 
you  arraign  your  wife  for  the  more  profuse  os 
culations  which  she  is  lavishing  upon  them. 
You  are  off  at  last,  thank  goodness,  with  the 
memory  of  four  heads  and  noses  pressed  against 
the  window-pane  in  the  final  exuberance  of 
god-speed. 

Happy  is  the  benedict  who  feels  that  his 
vacation  is  incomplete  without  the  society  of 
his  gentle  spouse !  Happy  too  is  the  spouse 
who  is  not  so  gentle  as  to  be  deterred  by  buga- 


118  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

boos  in  the  shape  of  fears  of  what  may  befall 
her  children  during  her  absence,  or  by  antipa 
thy  for  the  discomforts  of  the  pathless  woods 
from  accompanying  her  husband  1  It  is  well- 
nigh  impossible  to  overcome  the  nervousness 
of  many  women  sufficiently  to  induce  them  to 
leave  home  for  more  than  a  day  or  two  at  a 
time.  There  is,  moreover,  a  considerable  num 
ber  of  the  softer  sex  whose  constitutional  hor 
ror  of  snakes  and  the  kindred  accessories  of  a 
sylvan  outing,  remains  paramount  to  every 
other  consideration.  I  am  happy  to  state  that 
Josephine  is  blessed  with  a  certain  serenity  of 
nature  which  enables  her  to  abandon  her  off 
spring  for  moderate  periods  without  perturba 
tion,  and  merely  to  lift  her  skirts  and  run  with 
out  screaming  when  she  encounters  a  reptile. 

It  seems  almost  like  your  wedding  journey 
over  again  as  you  are  whirled  along  in  the 
train  by  the  side  of  your  sweet  partner,  and  in 
the  exuberance  of  this  romantic  suggestion  you 
whisper,  "  Do  you  suppose,  dear,  that  they  take 
us  for  a  newly  married  couple  ?  " 

"  What  a  perfect  goose  you  are,  Fred  !  Don't 
flatter  yourself  that  you  can  shuffle  off  the 
staid  aspect  of  a  paterfamilias  of  forty  simply 
by  turning  the  key  on  the  children." 


A  MARRIED  MAN  119 

"  Dear  little  souls  !  "  I  ejaculate.  "  Wouldn't 
it  be  nice  if  we  had  been  able  to  bring  one  or 
two  of  them  with  us  ?  " 

"No,  it  wouldn't,"  answers  Josephine,  flatly. 
"  I  was  just  thinking  what  a  perfect  blessing  it 
was  to  be  completely  free  from  them  for  a 
fortnight,  and  all  alone  with  my  dearest." 

Thereupon  her  head  drops  involuntarily 
upon  my  shoulder,  where  it  reposes  until  I 
can  no  longer  resist  the  temptation  of  remark 
ing,  "  I  think  we  pass  very  well  for  a  newly 
married  pair." 

"  You  nasty  thing,  Fred !  "  she  retorts,  bob 
bing  bolt  upright  as  though  electrified.  "  Just 
as  I  was  so  comfortable,  too  !  " 

Neither  argument  nor  flattery  can  induce  her 
to  resume  her  superincumbent  posture ;  but 
finally,  perhaps,  she  relents  so  far  as  to  permit 
you  to  hold  her  hand.  On  goes  the  train 
whizzing  and  jolting  into  the  twilight,  which 
fades  away  into  a  pitchy  landscape  illumined 
now  and  again  by  twinkling  cottage  lights,  and 
now  by  the  glare  of  urban  electricity.  Puff ! 
Pouff!  You  glide  into  a  smoke-vaulted  station 
where  the  vernacular  of  the  attendant  popu 
lace  smacks  of  apple-pie  and  cider.  Whir-r ! 
Bh-h  !  You  rumble  across  a  bridge  from  which 


120  TUB  REFLECTIONS  OF 

you  catch  a  glimpse  below  of  swift,  black 
water,  and  in  another  minute  you  are  shooting 
past  a  foundry  whose  chimneys  belch  splen 
did  tongues  of  fire. 

"  How  little  Fred  would  delight  in  that ! " 
murmurs  my  angel. 

"  I  thought  the  children  were  a  forbidden 
subject." 

Only  a  gentle  pressure  of  my  hand  for  an 
swer.  On,  on  we  jostle  through  the  night.  The 
tireless  engine  twists  and  turns  through  moun 
tain  valleys  from  the  sides  of  which  forests  of 
pine  send  down  impenetrable  gloom.  There  is 
a  colder,  fresher  savor  to  the  air  as  you  step  to 
the  door  to  ascertain  why  the  train  has  sudden 
ly  come  to  a  standstill. 

"  Only  a  cow  on  the  track,"  passes  from 
mouth  to  mouth  after  a  few  moments  of  sus 
pense,  during  which  a  vision  of  your  orphaned 
children  floats  pathetically  before  your  mind's 
eye.  Josephine  does  not  need  to  be  told  what 
you  are  thinking  about,  as  witness  her  pensive 
query  after  the  train  is  once  more  underway. 

"  I  wonder,  Fred,  if  they  would  care  just  a 
little  if  we  were  telescoped." 

Eleven  o'clock.  Only  twenty  minutes  more 
and  you  will  be  due  at  the  little  jumping-off 


A  MARRIED  MAN  121 

place  where  you  are  to  pass  the  night,  and 
from  which  you  are  to  set  out  for  camp  in  the 
morning.  You  begin  to  be  harassed  by  doubts 
as  to  whether  your  telegram  has  been  received, 
which  are  not  allayed  until  the  countenance 
of  Pete,  your  sometime  Indian  Guide,  looms 
from  the  platform.  He  wastes  no  words ;  his 
grin,  welcome  in  spite  of  its  stolidity,  and 
the  shake  of  his  hand  give  way  to  the  obliga 
tion  of  possessing  himself  of  all  your  traps. 
Still  he  eyes  the  white  woman  furtively  until 
you  find  leisure  to  remark,  "Pete,  this  is  my 
wife,  and  Josephine,  my  dear,  this  is  Pete." 

Introductions  to  Josephine  follow  of  mine 
host  of  the  inn,  whom  I  congratulate  on  the 
improvements  in  his  rattle-trap,  and,  after  we 
have  inspected  our  room,  of  Pete's  younger 
brother,  Oscar,  who  is  to  be  the  pilot  of  her 
canoe,  and  whose  sole  exemption  from  immo 
bility  appears  to  be  a  guttural  grunt.  I  put 
searching  questions  to  Pete  regarding  our 
chances  of  good  sport,  the  replies  to  which 
are  diplomatically  non-committal  and  then  wo 
seek  our  chamber  to  woo  slumber  on  behalf  of 
an  early  start. 

Slumber?  Would  that  expectation  were 
father  to  reality !  What  inducement  to  repose 


122  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

is  to  be  found  in  blankets  narrower  by  six 
inches  than  the  width  of  the  bed  requires? 
Two  minutes  after  you  have  tucked  yourself  in 
gloriously  about  the  shoulders — for  the  moun 
tain  air  feels  just  a  trifle  chilly — a  gentle  tug  de 
stroys  your  handiwork.  Without  delay  you  give 
a  resolute  tug  in  the  opposite  direction,  and 
immediately  the  voice  of  your  darling  protests. 

"  "What  are  you  doing,  Fred  ?  You  have  not 
left  me  an  inch  of  bed-clothes." 

Another  tug,  still  gentle  but  more  deter 
mined  than  the  first  accompanies  her  words, 
arousing  the  spirit  of  evil  within  you. 

"Confound  it  all,  it's  a  perfect  outrage  to 
give  us  a  bed  like  this,"  I  reply,  springing  up 
with  a  kick  which  destroys  whatever  semblance 
of  order  there  is  left,  and  I  strike  a  match 
viciously. 

I  raise  the  kerosene  lamp,  and  by  its  dim 
light  morosely  survey  the  situation. 

"What  are  you  trying  to  do,  Fred?"  my 
darling  inquires,  as  I  stride  past  the  bed. 

I  am  really  in  search  of  my  ulster,  which  is 
hanging  at  the  other  side  of  the  room,  but  it 
suddenly  occurs  to  me  to  slip  back  the  bolt  of 
the  connecting  door  which  leads  into  the  ad 
joining  chamber. 


A  MARRIED  MAN  123 

"  I'm  going  to  sleep  in  the  next  room,"  I 
reply,  gruffly. 

"  But  there  may  be  someone  in  there  al 
ready,"  cries  Josephine,  sitting  up  in  bed  under 
the  spur  of  her  trepidation. 

"  I  don't  care  if  there  is,"  I  answer,  with  a 
defiant  mien  resulting  from  secret  belief  that 
the  apartment  in  question  is  empty.  There 
upon  I  pull  at  the  door,  which  sticks  hard. 

"  You  will  wake  the  whole  house.  And  oh, 
Fred,  what  if  there  should  be  anyone  in  there ! " 

I  tie  a  towel  around  the  knob  and  pull  lusti 
ly.  The  door  yields  at  last  and,  flying  open, 
reveals  only  the  silence  of  the  tomb.  I  enter 
holding  the  lamp  high  above  my  head,  and  my 
horrified  eyes  behold  abed  completely  stripped 
of  everything  save  the  striped  mattress  and 
bolster  appropriate  to  a  dismantled  chamber. 
For  one  fell,  furious  moment  I  stand  irreso 
lute,  then  with  a  mighty  stride  I  return  to  my 
own  room,  and  seizing  my  ulster  and  certain 
other  belongings,  exclaim  with  stoical  calm  : 

"  Good-night,  Josephine." 

"  Oh,  Fred,  I  hate  to  have  you  leave  me. 
Let  me  sleep  in  there  and  you  here.  It  is  your 
vacation  and  you  need  all  the  rest  you  can  get. 
Are  you  sure  the  bod  is  comfortable  ?  " 


THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

"  I  am  going  to  sleep  there,"  I  answer  with 
diplomatic  firmness,  stooping  to  kiss  her. 

"  You  must  barricade  the  door  so  that  if  it  is 
anyone  else's  room  no  one  can  get  in." 

Anyone  else's  room  !  From  the  chill  stuffi 
ness  of  the  atmosphere  it  seems  as  though  it 
had  been  without  an  inmate  for  years.  I  wrap 
my  ulster  around  me  and  do  up  my  toes  in  my 
flannel  shirt,  and  stretch  myself  on  the  straw 
mattress.  Buminating,  I  gradually  acquire 
warmth,  until  a  steady,  far  off  murmur  assures 
me  that  my  darling  is  asleep  at  last.  Then  I 
sleep  too. 

A  few  hours  later  we  are  peacefully  skim 
ming  over  the  waters  of  the  lake.  Civilization 
lies  behind  us  hidden  by  a  bend.  Reclining 
with  an  air  of  supreme  comfort  in  our  respec 
tive  canoes,  we  smile  now  and  again  at  each 
other  across  the  scarcely  ruffled  gap  which 
separates  us.  It  is  a  cloudless  morning.  The 
profile  of  the  old  man  of  the  mountain,  to  which 
Pete  calls  our  attention  as  we  pass,  stands  out 
with  clean-cut  distinctness.  A  brace  of  shel 
drake  race  by  us  almost  within  gunshot  with 
plaintive  squawk.  The  hills  look  glorious  in 
their  garb  of  fresh  green,  and  we  screw  our 
eyes  to  make  out  far  away  the  barely  discerni- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  125 

ble  passage  between  them  beyond  which  lies 
the  virgin  forest  where  we  are  to  spend  a  fort 
night  out  of  reach  of  newspapers  and  the  chil 
dren. 

Our  canoes  are  laden  almost  to  the  gunnel 
Avith  our  kit,  comprising  tents,  woollen  and 
rubber  blankets,  a  cooking-stove,  a  trunk — Jo 
sephine  had  insisted  on  bringing  a  trunk— 
canned  soups,  our  rods,  and  a  camera.  By 
twilight  all  these  have  been  safely  landed  by 
Pete  and  the  guttural  Oscar  at  the  spot  chosen 
as  a  camping  ground — a  beatific  spot  on  the 
margin  of  the  smallest  and  most  picturesque  of 
a  trio  of  connecting  lakes.  Tall,  majestic  trees 
arch  over  us,  but  not  too  densely.  A.  cool 
brook  twinkles  close  at  hand.  Through  a 
fringed  clearing  we  behold  across  a  black-blue 
sheet  of  water  a  monarch  among  mountains, 
whose  stern  sides  run  down  to  meet  the  lake  in 
sheer  walls  rugged  with  scars  from  the  glacier 
period. 

Our  tents  rise  side  by  side  in  snowy  ampli 
tude.  Within  our  guides  spread  layers  of  red 
olent  hemlock  and  adjust  cheese-cloth  nettings 
to  baffle  the  predatory  sand-fly.  While  Oscar 
builds  a  noble  fire,  Pete  deftly  strips  layers  of 
bark  from  the  attendant  birches  and  fashions  a 


OF  THB 


126  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

(lining-table,  which  charms  the  fancy  of  Joseph 
ine  so  that  she  thrills  with  the  threat  of  carry 
ing  home  rolls  upon  rolls  of  birch-bark  for  the 
little  ones.  In  an  ecstasy  of  content  we  watch 
the  saffron  sunset  fade  to  soft  violet  and  the 
first  stars  peep  from  the  pellucid  sky.  I  lie 
stretched  at  full  length,  glorying  in  the  con 
sciousness  of  rest  and  of  freedom  from  care  and 
contact  with  the  workaday  world.  My  wife  and 
I,  ever  lovers,  seemed  to  have  usurped  the 
realm  of  poetry  for  our  sole  use.  And  yet  per 
haps  my  lips  are  mute.  Shall  I  tell  her  in  bald 
speech  that  her  eyes  are  more  tender  and 
trusting  than  the  evening  planet  o'erhead,  and 
her  soul  purer  than  the  golden  light  of  the  de 
parting  day  ? 

"  Supper !  " 

The  voice  of  Pete  breaks  in  upon  my  shy 
meditation.  We  seat  ourselves  beneath  a  rus 
tic  canopy  to  feast  ourselves  on  plenty :  on 
fresh  trout  and  fried  eggs  and  collops  of  toast, 
whereat  it  may  be  our  noses  would  have  turned 
up  in  wonderment  at  home,  but  which  we 
attack  with  the  vigor  of  primitive  man.  We 
drink  pannikins  of  tea  strong  as  lye,  and  fear 
lessly  ask  for  more.  Thrice  at  least  since  the 
canoes  touched  shore  has  Josephine  derided 


A  MARRIED  MAN 


my  countenance,  copper-colored  from  its  coat 
ing  of  tar  and  oil,  and  called  heaven  to  witness 
that  she  disowned  me  as  a  husband  ;  but  now 
at  length  the  hour  of  my  triumph  arrives. 

"  Fred  !  "  she  ejaculates,  breaking  down  com 
pletely,  "give  me  some  of  that  stuff.  They 
are  all  over  me  ;  they  are  driving  me  crazy  ;  in 
my  ears,  in  my  nostrils,  in  my  mouth,  and  on 
both  sides  of  my  buttered  toast.  I  cannot 
bear  it  a  moment  longer." 

I  bid  Pete  build  a  smudge  and  I  hasten  to 
my  tent  for  the  precious  mixture.  Josephine 
essays  it  gingerly. 

"  A  little  dab  like  that  will  be  of  no  use,"  I 
exclaim  firmly,  and  suiting  the  action  to  the 
word  I  baptize  her  delicate  cheeks  with  glori 
ous  smears  of  the  oleaginous  compound,  re 
marking  withal  as  a  sop  to  her  outraged  spirit 
that  it  is  excellent  for  the  complexion. 

On  the  morrow  we  fish.  On  the  morrow  and 
on  succeeding  days.  I  and  Josephine  also.  I 
with  a  fly-rod  to  the  end,  and  she  with  a  fly- 
rod  for  five  minutes,  during  which  she  succeeds 
in  hooking  Oscar  in  the  cheek  and  entangling 
herself  well-nigh  inextricably  in  her  own  cast 
ing  line.  After  this  she  prefers  to  troll,  and 
she  trolls  indefatigably.  That  is,  she  reclines 


128  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

with  a  graceful  pose  in  her  canoe  and  suffers 
herself  to  be  piloted  from  lake  to  lake.  A  rod 
is  over  her  shoulder  and  a  novel  in  her  lap. 
She  reads  a  little  and  she  dozes  a  little,  and 
when  she  feels  a  twitch,  she  twitches  sooner  or 
later  in  her  turn.  It  is  wonderful  how  many 
fish  she  manages  to  capture  in  this  haphazard 
way,  and,  what  is  more,  the  largest  monsters  in 
the  lake  seek  her  hook.  She  reels  them  in  in 
a  seraphic  fashion  to  the  delight  of  Oscar  and 
no  less  of  Pete,  who  confides  to  me  that  my 
wife  is  a  born  fisherman.  I  realize  that  this 
encomium  embodies  a  tacit  reflection  on  my 
own  lack  of  science,  not  to  be  gainsaid  by  tales 
of  quondam  victories  over  muscallonge,  salmon, 
and  tarpon.  It  is  very  evident  that  I  must  be 
content  to  occupy  in  his  eyes  a  rank  completely 
second  to  the  sweet  angel  of  my  bosom,  who 
knows  not  the  difference  between  a  Brown 
Hackle  and  a  Parmachenee  Belle,  and  who 
frankly  admits  a  preference  for  live  bait. 

The  days  glide  imperceptibly.  There  is  a 
delicious  sameness  in  them  all,  and  yet  each 
has  its  special  charm.  We  angle  and  we  medi 
tate;  we  paddle  and  we  vegetate.  We  make 
all-day  excursions,  and  in  the  course  of  them 
take  luncheon  on  tight  little  islands  solitary 


A  MARRIED  MAN  129 

enough  to  arouse  the  envy  of  an  Alexander  Sel 
kirk.  We  recall  and  quote  poetry  of  which  we 
have  not  thought  for  years.  We  photograph 
each  other  and  our  guides  in  every  conceivable 
attitude,  and  our  camp  from  every  point  of 
view.  Josephine  sees  a  pair  of  huge  fiery  eyes 
peering  into  her  tent  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
and  will  not  be  persuaded  (even  unto  this  day) 
that  the  intruder  was  a  rabbit  and  not  a  bear. 
By  the  camp-fire  Oscar  exhibits  to  me  Jo 
sephine's  new  fly-rod  splintered  through  con 
tact  with  his  weight  in  stepping  backward,  and 
articulates  philosophically,  "  Lady  no  fly  fish  ; 
lady  troll.  Gentleman  buy  another  when  home. 
Indian  mend  pretty  good  perhaps." 

We  bathe  and  cleanse  our  souls  in  the  holy 
atmosphere  of  the  summer  evening,  and  once 
more,  as  in  the  days  of  our  youth,  we  gaze  be 
tween  the  solemn  pines  at  the  lustrous  night 
seeking  the  infinite.  We  whisper  "  peccavi " 
to  the  pitying  stars,  and  in  the  conscious 
ness  of  lack  of  power  to  pierce  the  mysteries  of 
cosmos,  my  hand  seeks  hers  and  hers  mine  in 
token  of  the  love  for  the  sake  of  which  alone 
we  crave  immortality. 

There  comes  a  day  when  the  walls  of  our 
tents  fall  like  the  walls  of  the  houses  of  Jericho 
9 


130     REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN 

at  the  voice  of  the  prophet's  trumpet.  I  take 
apart  my  rods,  and  Josephine  arms  herself  with 
the  vast  collection  of  ferns  and  the  rolls  of 
birch-bark  which  she  purposes  to  carry  home 
with  her.  Mournfully  we  take  a  last  look  from 
our  canoes  at  our  dismantled  camping-ground ; 
yet  already  my  wife's  eyes  are  bright  with  the 
thought  of  seeing  the  children  again,  and  I  am 
beginning  to  wonder  what  has  been  going  on 
in  the  civilized  world  during  the  past  fortnight. 
We  are  sorry  to  be  going,  and  yet  we  are  glad. 
Josephine  stigmatizes  the  rapture  with  which  I 
receive  a  bundle  of  newspapers  from  a  sports 
man  whom  we  pass  on  our  way  out  as  hysterical 
and  almost  indecent. 

"  It  was  only  a  fortnight  ago  that  you  said 
you  never  wished  to  look  at  another  newspaper, 
Fred." 

"  And  you,  my  dear,  that  it  was  a  perfect 
blessing  to  be  rid  of  the  children,"  I  retort, 
and  then  I  absorb  myself  in  the  affairs  of  the 
body  politic,  oblivious  alike  of  lake  and  forest. 


IX. 


SAID  my  wife  to  me  one  morning,  just  after 
the  arrival  of  the  postman,  "  Julia  is  go 
ing  to  pay  us  a  nice,  long  visit." 

"  I'm  glad  to  hear  it,"  I  answered,  cheerily. 

Julia  is  my  wife's  only  sister,  who  lives  in 
the  suburbs  and  has  been  in  the  habit  of  stay 
ing  with  us  for  a  month  or  so  during  the  win 
ter  ever  since  we  have  been  man  and  wife. 
She  is  an  attractive  girl,  but  is  less  comely 
than  Josephine  and  not  so  sagacious.  In  fact 
she  has  always  seemed  to  me  rather  flighty. 
Still,  as  girls  go,  she  is  decidedly  prepossess 
ing,  and  I  am  very  fond  of  her,  notwithstand 
ing  the  fact  that  Josephine  invariably  collapses 
after  she  has  gone,  as  the  result  of  her  stay. 

"  Julia  will  be  nineteen  the  twenty-sixth  of 
December,"  continued  my  wife  reflectively. 

"  I  remember,  dear,  that  she  has  labored  all 
her  life  under  the  misfortune  of  a  birthday  so 
near  Christmas  that  people  made  one  present 


132  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

do  double  duty.  I  have  always  thought  it  was 
very  hard  on  Julia." 

"Well,  considering  the  hardship  of  her 
case,"  said  my  wife,  boldy,  taking  advantage  of 
my  sportive  mood,  "  what  do  you  think  of  giv 
ing  her  a  party  ?  " 

"  A  party  ?  "  I  faltered. 

"  Yes.  Julia  comes  out  this  winter,  you 
know.  Mamma  is  too  delicate  to  take  on  her 
own  shoulders  the  entire  brunt  of  the  wear  and 
tear  involved,  and  I  should  like  to  do  what  I 
can  to  help.  Besides,  we  have  been  married 
now  ten  years,  and  have  accepted  so  many  in 
vitations  without  returning  them  that  I  am  al 
most  ashamed  to  look  people  in  the  face.  It 
was  all  very  well  not  to  entertain  until  we  had 
an  excuse,  but  we  shall  never  have  another 
excuse  so  good  as  this  until  Josie  comes 
out." 

I  will  frankly  confess  that  I  have  failed  to 
experience  the  compunctions  as  to  looking  my 
acquaintance  in  the  face  referred  to  by  Joseph 
ine.  It  has  never  occurred  to  me  to  quail  in 
the  presence  of  the  long  line  of  social  benefac 
tors  who  have  proffered  us  hospitality  during 
the  last  decade  in  the  form  of  dinners,  cotil 
lons,  and  evening  receptions.  People  entertain 


A  MARRIED  MAN  133 

because  they  or  their  wives  feel  an  inclination 
so  to  do,  and  considering  that  I  have  very 
often  dragged  myself  to  their  festivities  de 
spite  every  inclination  to  remain  at  home,  I 
feel  that  I  am  entitled  to  cry  "  quits  "  on  the 
score  of  obligation.  Moreover,  Josephine's 
strictures  were  by  no  means  just,  as  I  hastened 
to  point  out  to  her.  Surely  she  had  not  for 
gotten  the  huge  kettledrum  and  two  smaller 
teas,  by  means  of  which  she  had  killed  off  her 
entire  visiting  list  ?  Had  not  her  sewing-cir 
cle  eaten  us  out  of  house  and  home  biennially 
since  we  had  plighted  our  troth  at  the  altar? 
Then,  too,  in  point  of  dinner  company  I  was 
ready  to  challenge  comparison  with  almost 
any  one  of  my  contemporaries.  How  often 
had  I  aroused  her  ire  by  bringing  home  a 
friend  to  share  pot-luck  without  even  telephon 
ing  to  her  that  he  was  coming,  so  that  she 
could  send  to  the  butcher's  shop  around  the 
corner,  which  we  patronize  only  in  case  of  ex 
igency,  for  an  extra  brace  of  chops  or  a  head 
of  lettuce  !  At  least  she  would  bear  witness  to 
the  dinner-party  we  gave  in  the  second  year 
of  our  married  life  to  my  old  chum  Gorham 
Delany  011  his  wedding-trip,  when  I  maintain 
ed  that  champagne  was  far  more  indispensable 


13i  THE  REFLECTIONS   OF 

than  an  extra  girl  to  wait  and  she  exactly  the 
opposite  ? 

"  And  we  ended  by  having  both,"  broke  in 
Josephine,  with  a  tragic  air.  "  Oh,  I  know, 
Fred,"  she  continued,  "  that  in  one  sense  of 
the  word  we  have  done  our  part,  and  I  would 
not  for  an  instant  suggest  giving  anything  big 
if  it  were  not  for  dear  Julia.  It  will  be  such 
a  help  to  the  child  to  be  properly  introduced 
to  people.  And  though  the  house  is  small  and 
not  particularly  convenient  for  entertaining, 
it  can  be  made  to  look  well  enough  now  that 
the  drawing-room  ceiling  has  been  re  tin  ted." 

Craftiness,  thy  name  is  woman  !  It  was  ob 
vious  to  me  now  why  Josephine  had  seemed  so 
eager  to  have  that  ceiling  done  over  before  we 
moved  from  the  sea- side. 

As  it  happened,  however,  I  was  feeling  tol 
erably  flush,  by  reason  of  a  windfall  which 
had  left  me  with  an  extra  thousand  dollar  bill. 
Somebody  had  told  me  to  buy  cotton.  I  had 
done  so,  and  sold  it  a  month  later  at  a  hand 
some  profit,  and  I  had  been  trying  to  make  up 
my  mind  for  a  fortnight  whether  to  spend  the 
proceeds  of  the  venture  in  a  diamond  crescent 
for  Josephine  or  a  fur  overcoat  for  myself. 
Somehow  I  felt  that  it  was  money  to  be  squan- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  135 

dered  rather^than  saved.  Consequently  I  now 
remarked,  with  a  sigh  of  resignation  : 

"  Very  well,  dear  ;  give  a  party  if  you  see  fit." 

Josephine  looked  successively  bewildered, 
radiant,  and  finally  anxious. 

"  You  know,  Fred,  that  a  party  means  more 
than  two  or  three  moulds  of  ice-cream  with 
mixed  cakes." 

Evidently  she  had  expected  a  much  more 
serious  tussle,  and  wished  to  make  sure  that  I 
realized  what  I  was  in  for. 

"  Have  a  dozen  moulds,  then,  if  necessary." 

"  You  cannot  give  a  party  nowadays  for  noth 
ing,"  she  added,  with  conscientious  insistence. 

"Everything  costs  more  than  it  is  worth 
nowadays,"  I  answered  oracularly.  "  Give 
your  party,  Josephine,  and  I  will  pay  the  bills. 
Only,"  I  added,  by  way  of  a  prospective  brake 
on  extravagance,  "  remember  that  we  are  not 
millionaires." 

"You  are  a  dear,  kind,  good,  generous 
duck,"  she  exclaimed,  effusively,  throwing  her 
arms  around  my  neck.  "  I  will  send  for  Sam 
Bangs  to-morrow." 

Sam  Bangs  is  a  convenient  friend  of  the 
family,  a  second  cousin  of  mine,  and  rather  a 
pal  of  Josephine's.  The  world  at  large  christ- 


136  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

ened  him  "  Slam "  Bangs  early  in  life  because 
of  his  rattling  energy ;  but  contact  with  the 
world  in  question  has  toned  down  the  rattle  to 
a  conventional  key  and  left  the  energy  unim 
paired.  He  has  led  more  Germans,  and  been 
an  usher  at  a  larger  number  of  weddings  and 
funerals  than  any  man  of  his  years  in  town, 
and  is  consequently  a  social  authority. 

Sam  duly  appeared  in  all  the  regalia  of  even 
ing  dress  and  a  chrysanthemum,  and  smiled 
benignly  on  the  project.  "  I  shall  depend  on 
you  to  help  me  make  it  a  success,"  Josephine 
said  to  him  with  a  supplicating  air ;  and  there 
after  the  pair  was  deep  in  consultation  for  at 
least  half  a  dozen  evenings  during  the  next 
three  weeks. 

The  married  man  whose  wife  is  on  the  eve 
of  giving  a  ball,  is  absolutely  of  no  account, 
and  colloquially  speaking,  his  room  is  far  more 
desirable  than  his  company.  He  is  the  last 
person  to  whom  anyone  would  think  of  refer 
ring  the  various  knotty  problems  to  be  solved, 
and  they  are  diverse.  Josephine's  throes 
over  her  invitation  list  were  simply  agonizing, 
and,  as  she  herself  informed  me  after  all  was 
over,  her  distress  of  mind  was  intensified  by 
the  consciousness  that  I  was  of  no  use  what- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  137 

ever  as  an  adviser.  I  was  fortunate  enough, 
however,  to  be  allowed  to  remain  within  ear 
shot  of  the  arrangements,  on  the  tacit  under 
standing  that  I  was  on  no  account  to  ruffle  the 
current  of  conversation  with  my  oar. 

Sam  Bangs  laid  down  many  precepts  for  Jo 
sephine's  guidance,  but  first  and  foremost  he 
impressed  upon  her  the  necessity  of  plenty  of 
men.  He  declared  that,  no  matter  how  ele 
gant  a  party  might  be,  or  how  admirably  con 
ducted,  a  scarcity  of  men  would  be  the  ruin  of 
it ;  that  a  party  where  men  were  abundant  was 
pretty  sure  to  go  off  with  snap,  and  that  snap 
was  of  the  essence  of  things  where  entertain 
ments  are  concerned. 

"  But  where  are  we  to  get  the  men  ?  "  anx 
iously  inquired  Josephine,  who  had  Mrs.  Wil- 
loughby  Walton's  list,  which  she  had  bor 
rowed,  in  one  hand,  and  a  pencil  in  the  other. 
"  I  don't  know  half  of  these." 

"You  must  invite  everyone,  whether  you 
know  them  or  not." 

"  Certainly,  if  I  know  their  fathers  and 
mothers." 

"  Then  you  will  never  have  enough,  Cousin 
Josephine.  There  is  a  large  floating  contingent 
of  dancing  men  who  are  destitute  of  fathers 


138  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

and  mothers  in  the  conventional  sense ;  but 
they,  the  sons,  are  the  rank  and  file  of  every 
large  party  nowadays,  and  you  have  to  ask 
them.  Otherwise  there  is  a  dearth  of  partners 
and  the  girls  have  a  stupid  time." 

"  What  would  they  think  of  me  if  I  should 
ask  them  without  knowing  them  ?  " 

"Most  of  them  wouldn't  think  of  you  at  all; 
that's  the  beauty  of  it.  They  would  come  and 
dance  and  eat  supper,  and  dance  again  and  then 
eat  supper  again,  without  bothering  their  heads 
about  you  in  the  least.  They  are  quite  used  to 
it,  I  assure  you.  Five  out  of  six  would  not 
know  you  or  Miss  Julia  from  Adam  if  they 
were  to  meet  you  the  next  day.  Of  course,  if  you 
were  going  to  give  a  very  small,  select  affair, 
you  could  pick  and  choose,  but  in  a  tutti  frutti 
you  must  have  men,  even  if  you  have  to  hire 
them." 

"  Then  why  shouldn't  I  give  a  small  affair 
instead  of  a — a  tutti  frutti  ?  "  inquired  my  dar 
ling  with  a  pathetic  gasp  as  though  she  were  a 
drowning  woman  snatching  at  a  straw. 

"  In  that  case  you  would  have  to  leave  out 
half  the  people  you  do  know,  which  might  be 
embarrassing." 

"Indeed  it  would,"  said  Josephine,  and  for 


A  MARRIED  MAN  139 

the  next  half-hour  she  endeavored  to  compute 
whether  it  would  be  more  distressing  to  have 
to  invite  the  rag,  tag,  and  bob-tail  as  she  called 
it,  or  be  compelled  to  leave  out  half  her  social 
acquaintance. 

"Would  it  be  possible,  Cousin  Sam?"  she 
pleaded. 

"  To  do  what  ?  " 

"  Give  a  small  dance  without  offending  peo 
ple?" 

"  That  depends  on  the  number  you  feel 
obliged  to  ask." 

"I  made  an  impromptu  calculation  the 
other  day,"  she  answered,  ruefully,  "and  I 
don't  see  how  I  can  escape  from  inviting  six 
hundred  in  any  event — and  that  of  course  with 
out  the  extra  young  men  you  mentioned." 

"  Forty  couples  are  all  this  house  will  possi 
bly  accommodate  with  comfort  for  a  german, 
Cousin  Josephine,  but  you  can  invite  any 
number  of  people  to  a  jam." 

"  And  there  are  forty- three  buds  alone  with 
out  counting  Julia,"  she  groaned.  "I  had 
better  go  in  for  the  jam  and  get  it  over." 

"  You  can  kill  off  everybody  now,  and  an 
other  time  it  will  be  easier  to  give  the  smaller 
dance." 


140  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

After  the  decision  of  this  momentous  ques 
tion  came  the  excruciating  task  of  overhauling 
the  invitation  list.  Incessantly  one  or  the 
other  would  burst  out  with  some  such  horri 
fied  exclamation,  as  "  He  died  three  years  ago, 
strike  him  out,"  or  "  Mercy  on  us,  I  was  nearly 
forgetting  that  Polly  Flinders  isn't  Polly  Flin 
ders  any  longer."  There  was  a  constant  bick 
ering  between  them  also  on  the  score  of  admis- 
sibility.  Sam,  in  the  interest  of  the  dancing 
phalanx,  was  in  favor  of  applying  the  prun- 
ing-kiiife  freely  among  the  "  ancient  and  honor- 
ables,"  as  he  called  them,  and  on  the  other  hand 
Josephine,  from  fear  of  giving  offence,  was  dis 
posed  to  include  every  grandmother  and  great- 
aunt  in  her  social  category.  Three  evenings 
were  spent  in  this  manner  before  the  last  let 
ter  in  the  alphabet  was  reached,  and  my  dar 
ling  was  able  to  smile  again.  Even  then  it 
was  a  little  ghost  of  a  smile,  accompanied  by 
the  disheartened  utterance  that  she  fully  ex 
pected  to  discover,  after  the  invitations  had 
been  issued,  that  she  had  omitted  her  dearest 
friends  and  made  many  mortal  enemies. 

When  the  invitation  list  was  out  of  the  way 
the  parquet  floor  became  Josephine's  crown 
ing  concern.  The  fact  that  the  drawing-room 


A  MARRIED  MAN  141 

happened  to  have  a  parquet  floor  had  been, 
as  I  subsequently  discovered,  a  constant  spur 
to  her  to  give  a  party  ever  since  our  mar 
riage.  For  what  can  equal  for  dancing  a  care 
fully  oiled  floor?  What,  indeed!  And  what 
is  more  detestable  than  one  out  of  condition  ? 
Josephine  fancied  that  she  had  merely  to  re 
move  the  nig  and  apply  a  little  furniture  pol 
ish  to  the  surface  of  hers  in  order  to  render 
it  a  terpsichorean  paradise.  How  often  are 
our  most  confident  expectations  blighted ! 
For  a  fortnight  she  was  racked  by  the  alter 
nate  consciousness  that  her  paradise  was  so 
slippery  as  to  be  dangerous  to  life  and  limb, 
or  so  sticky  as  to  dishearten  the  least  exacting 
of  waltzers.  Hour  after  hour  housemaids, 
with  cloths  bundled  about  their  feet,  rubbed 
it  with  judiciously  moistened  mops,  and  hour 
after  hour  experienced  furniture  polishers 
treated  it  with  lubricating  liquids,  until  the 
house  smelt  like  a  combined  chemist's  and 
sign-painter's  establishment;  and  even  the 
willing  Sam  Bangs  had  grown  weary  in  pirou 
etting  over  it  with  Josephine  in  order  to  de 
cide  whether  it  was  just  right.  When  at  last 
Sam  pronounced  solemnly  that  it  was  perfect, 
Josephine  looked  as  though  she  would  cry 


142  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

with  rapture ;  but  she  restrained  her  tears 
until  the  following  day,  when  she  caught  sight 
of  me  standing  in  the  middle  of  it,  fresh  from 
the  street  in  my  muddy  boots,  as  she  graphi 
cally  described  the  situation. 

As  for  Sam  Bangs,  he  was  completely  in  his 
element ;  that  is  to  say,  he  was  in  and  out  of 
our  house  half  a  dozen  times  in  the  course  of 
every  twenty-four  hours — ringing  the  door-bell 
before  breakfast,  and  as  likely  as  not  at  night 
just  when  I  was  on  the  point  of  turning  out 
the  gas  and  thanking  my  lucky  stars  that  I 
had  seen  the  last  of  him  for  that  day  at  least. 
The  household  was  up  in  arms,  and  the  house 
in  the  possession  of  dressmakers  and  small 
mechanics.  The  hall  was  full  of  camp-stools. 
One  afternoon,  when  I  chanced  to  return 
home  earlier  than  usual,  there  was  a  scurrying 
exodus  from  my  dressing-room  of  Julia  in  dis 
habille  and  two  dressmakers,  who  shrieked  as 
they  fled,  like  the  squawking  sheldrake  of  the 
lake.  I  had  interrupted  my  sister-in-law  in 
the  process  of  being  fitted  to  the  waist  of  her 
new  ball-dress.  Afflicting  days  these  for  a 
married  man  !  Although  Josephine  explained 
that  a  cloth  was  thrown  over  the  floor  of  my 
dressing-room  every  morning,  and  that  the 


A  MARRIED  MAN  143 

housemaid  had  explicit  orders  to  tidy  up  as 
soon  as  the  dressmakers  had  departed,  I 
picked  up  a  dozen  needles  and  three  score 
pins  in  the  course  of  their  stay,  and  trod  the 
carpet  in  perpetual  fear  of  lockjaw. 

The  eventful  day  arrived  at  last.  Early  in 
the  afternoon  Josephine  introduced  me  to  a 
caterer  of  predatory  mien,  who  demanded  the 
key  of  my  wine-cellar  and  proceeded  to  sup 
plement  the  dozens  of  champagne  which  were 
being  iced  in  tubs  with  the  few  bottles  of 
choice  Madeira,  brandy,  and  port  which  I  had 
collected  from  time  to  time  with  a  view  to 
opening  them  when  I  and  they  had  grown 
mellow  with  age.  When  I  entered  the  draw 
ing-room  at  ten  o'clock,  I  felt  some  doubts  as 
to  whether  Sam  Bangs  or  I  was  the  proprietor 
of  the  establishment.  These  vanished  com 
pletely  after  he  insisted  on  reopening  the  win 
dows,  which  I  had  closed,  on  the  plea  that, 
unless  the  mercury  were  detained  in  close 
proximity  to  the  freezing-point  until  the 
guests  arrived,  the  heat  would  be  unendurable 
later,  a  proposition  which  Josephine  and  Julia 
supported  so  vigorously  that  I  turned  up  th<> 
collar  of  my  dress-coat  and  abandoned  the 
field  to  my  rival.  He  was  already  attended 


THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

by  a  corps  of  magnificent  youths  who  were  to 
officiate  as  ushers.  Several  of  these  did  me 
the  honor  to  exchange  a  few  words  with  me, 
but  the  most  of  them  ignored  my  presence,  or 
rather  tolerated  it  with  much  the  same  air  of 
toplofty  unconcern  with  which  they  put  up 
with  the  presence  of  the  waiters  and  the  mu 
sicians — nuisances,  so  to  speak,  but  under  the 
circumstances  not  to  be  got  rid  of.  Happen 
ing  to  filch  a  tinsel  rose  from  the  basket  on 
the  mantel-piece  containing  the  favors  for  the 
germ  an,  intending  to  save  it  for  little  Winona, 
I  quailed  before  the  frosty  gaze  of  one  of 
these  dragons  of  the  ball-room,  who  informed 
me  that  they  were  not  to  be  taken  until  later 
in  the  evening.  Moreover  I  replaced  it  with 
an  apology  so  humble  that  he  unbent  himself 
so  far  as  to  add  that,  if  everyone  were  to  follow 
my  example,  the  favors  would  be  exhausted 
before  the  german  began.  Five  minutes  after 
ward  I  heard  him  inquire  of  Sam  Bangs  who 
that  old  cock  was,  and  I  cherish,  among  the 
few  delightful  memories  of  the  evening,  the 
sickly  expression  of  his  features  consequent 
upon  the  answer  of  his  chief. 

In  much  the  same  fashion  as  the  tide  ad 
vances  up  a  shingly  beach,  do  the  guests  ar- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  145 

rive  at  a  large  party.  A  preliminary  straggler 
or  two  put  in  an  appearance,  then  a  batch  of 
three  or  four ;  there  is  a  lull,  followed  by  a 
file  of  stragglers,  and  more  frequent  batches  ; 
another  lull,  and  of  a  sudden  a  continuous 
stream  which  swells  and  subdivides  until  it 
loses  itself  in  a  seething,  murmuring  con 
course  which  hurls  itself  upon  the  bewildered 
hostess  and  is  sucked  back  by  the  undertow. 

Dazed  by  innumerable  greetings  and  hand 
shakings,  I  merely  try  to  keep  steadily  in 
mind  Josephine's  strict  injunction  that  I  am 
to  look  out  for  the  girls  who  are  left  stranded 
without  a  soul  to  speak  to  them,  and  to  relieve 
men  who  have  been  too  long  in  the  society  of 
any  one  woman.  As  I  worm  my  way  through 
the  crowded  rooms  I  feel  myself  to  be  a  con 
glomeration  of  the  good  Samaritan  and  an  am 
ateur  detective.  From  time  to  time  an  emis 
sary  recalls  me  to  the  side  of  Josephine  to 
receive  whispered  instructions  to  restrain  the 
children  from  displaying  themselves  at  the 
head  of  the  staircase  in  their  nightgowns,  or 
to  caution  the  caterer  not  to  let  salt  get  into 
the  ice-cream.  She  is  nervous  and  excited, 
and  informs  me  with  delight  three  separate 
times  that  the  Eeverend  Bradley  Mason,  our 
10 


146  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

spiritual  adviser,  and  Doctor  Henry  Meredith, 
the  specialist  on  nervous  diseases,  are  among 
our  guests. 

"  You  know,  Fred,  that  it  is  the  rarest  thing 
to  see  either  of  them  at  a  party,  and  I  con 
sider  it  a  great  compliment  that  they  should 
have  made  an  exception  in  our  favor." 

It  seems  as  though  every  friend  and  ac 
quaintance  whom  I  possess  has  made  an  ex 
ception  in  our  favor,  for  the  rooms  are  per- 
spiringly  crowded.  Mrs.  George  Scott,  and 
Mrs.  Willoughby  Walton,  and  Mrs.  Guy 
Sloane  arrive  later  than  ever,  and  their  advent 
is  scarcely  less  notable  than  a  decade  ago, 
when  they  were  fresh  and  youthful  as  the  half 
dozen  younger  married  women  threatening  to 
usurp  their  places.  Youths  who  are,  figura 
tively  speaking,  babes  in  arms,  dance  attend 
ance  on  them,  and  Mrs.  Walton's  bosom  is 
banked  with  the  same  profusion  of  flowers. 
Mrs.  Guy  drops  me  a  courtesy  and  bends  upon 
me  a  glance  of  melancholy,  yet  tender  reproach 
which  seems  to  inquire  why  I  have  failed  to 
visit  her  for  three  years.  Is  it  verily  three 
years  since  I  have  called  upon  her  ?  I  blush 
for  the  rapid  flight  of  time.  Another  emis 
sary  touches  my  shoulder  and  emits  the  man- 


A  MARRIED  MAN  147 

date  that  my  wife  is  waiting  for  me.  I  find 
Josephine  in  a  fever  of  nervous  tension  over 
the  fact  that  supper  has  been  ready  for  ten 
minutes,  and  that  she  has  been  unable  to  find 
me  to  tell  me  that  I  am  to  lead  the  way  with 
Mrs.  Cadwallader  Kean. 

"  Why  doesn't  Sam  Bangs  lead  the  way  ?  " 
I  inquire,  gravely.  "He  is  running  this 
thing." 

My  darling  opens  her  eyes  in  bewildered 
astonishment  at  my  pleasantry.  Then,  with  a 
little  toss  of  her  head,  which  implies  that  she 
has  no  time  to  waste  over  such  nonsense,  she 
gives  me  a  gentle  push,  saying  : 

"Don't  dawdle,  Fred;  there  she  is,  stand 
ing  exactly  in  the  direction  where  I  am  look 
ing." 

I  hie  me  to  the  wrinkled  sexagenarian  in 
question.  Her  husband  had  been  one  of 
those  admirably  attractive  men  who  manage  to 
drink  themselves  to  death  early  in  life  and  yet 
leave  behind  them  a  lustre  of  fashionable 
importance  which  gilds  their  posterity.  It  is 
not  easy  to  state  in  terms  why  Mrs.  Cadwal 
lader  is  entitled  to  precedence,  yet  everyone 
knows  that  she  is,  and  she  takes  my  arm  as 
though  she  were  accustomed  to  the  attention. 


148  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

Our  exit  toward  the  supper-room  is  the  signal 
for  a  general  stampede  thither.  Young  men 
and  old  men,  like  an  army  of  black  ants,  infest 
the  tables  and  struggle  fiercely  for  hot  bouil 
lon,  raw  oysters,  chicken-salad,  lobster  cro 
quettes,  filet  of  beef,  champagne,  ice-cream, 
rolls,  napkins,  and  ice-water.  I  behold  a 
judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  foiled  in  an  at 
tempt  to  capture  a  remaining  sweet-bread  by 
a  youth  barely  out  of  his  teens,  who  is  forag 
ing  for  his  rose-bud  partner.  Through  a  sea 
of  black  coats  and  jostling  elbows  and  surging 
beards  and  mustaches  I  catch  sight  of  our 
diminutive  but  beloved  pastor  wedged  in  be 
tween  two  rowing  men  from  the  University, 
who  seem  to  be  determined  that  he  shall  never 
reach  shore  with  the  plate  of  ice-cream  which 
he  is  clutching  like  a  vice.  I  notice,  too,  Dr. 
Meredith  partaking  freely  of  most  of  the  arti 
cles  of  diet  against  which  his  professional 
fulminations  are  uttered.  And  ever  and  anon 
I  am  recalled  to  the  side  of  my  darling,  who  is 
beset  by  a  hundred  fears.  Why  are  there  not 
plenty  of  rolls  ?  Where  are  the  napkins  ? 
Why  do  the  waiters  neglect  to  offer  Apol- 
linaris  water  to  the  ladies  in  accordance  with 
her  positive  orders  ?  It  is  I  who  am  in  her 


A  MARRIED  MAN  149 

service  and  at  her  beck  and  call  now,  for  Sam 
lias  yielded  to  temptation  and  established 
himself  with  his  Dulcinea  del  Toboso  in  the 
only  cubby-hole  in  the  house  adapted  for  two. 
Little  by  little  the  press  diminishes,  until 
only  the  few  who  are  fain  to  eat  and  drink  in 
peace  are  left  in  the  supper-room.  I  notice  Gil- 
lespie  Gore  sampling  my  Madeira  and  press 
ing  it  upon  the  attention  of  discriminating 
pals.  The  musicians  are  tuning  their  instru 
ments  and  a  few  people  (thank  goodness !)  are 
going  home.  Josephine's  parquet  floor  is  over 
run  by  a  bevy  of  gilded  youths  contending  for 
camp-stools,  and  out  of  stormy  chaos  the  ger- 
man  forms  itself  at  last  under  the  supervision 
of  Sam,  who  has  been  dragged  from  his  cubby 
hole.  Three  hours  of  strenuous  dancing  fol 
low,  during  which  I  flit  restlessly  from  pillar 
to  post,  from  the  benches  where  the  matrons 
are  dozing  with  one  eye  open  on  their  daugh 
ters  to  the  supper-room  where  perpetual  hot 
ducks  and  my  Madeira  still  detain  Gillespie 
Gore  and  company,  and  where  the  dancing 
men  without  mothers  and  fathers  quaff  goblets 
galore  of  champagne  after  each  figure  of  the 
thirst-provoking  dance.  I  am  yearning  to  go 
to  bed,  and  I  recall  the  answer  of  the  host  in 


"     OF 

TJNIVER 


150  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

Punch,  to  whom  the  bored  spirit  at  his  side, 
leaning  against  the  wall,  whispered,  "  This  is 
jolly  stupid;  I  say,  let's  go  home." — "Would 
to  heaven  I  could,  but  I  can't,  for  it's  my 
house !  " 

One  o'clock,  two  o'clock,  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  now  it  is  a  quarter  of  four.  I 
peep  behind  a  curtain  and  rurninantly  scan 
the  glimmering  east.  At  last  the  waltzers,  who 
have  grown  more  exuberant  with  every  hour, 
show  signs  of  cessation.  Chaperones,  exhaust 
ed  in  patience,  rouse  themselves  from  their 
somnolence  and  exercise  authority  over  their 
charges.  Mrs.  Cadwallader  Kean,  drawing  her 
old-lace  shawl  around  her  shoulders  with  dig 
nified  impressiveness,  announces  that  it  is  time 
for  her  daughter  to  go  home.  Even  Sam,  the 
inexhaustible  and  inextinguishable,  admits  that 
the  german  is  at  an  end,  and  that  there  is  to  be 
only  one  final  polka  to  wind  up  with. 

Oh,  the  joy  and  rapture  of  that  last  polka ! 
Maidens  on  the  point  of  departure  tear  them 
selves  free  from  the  maternal  grasp  at  the 
invitation  of  the  first  partner  who  offers  his 
hand  and  fall  into  the  delicious  rhythm  of  the 
swinging  quickstep,  and  the  old  war-horses 
who  have  been  looking  forward  to  it  all  the 


A  MARRIED  MAN  151 

evening,  fling  themselves  into  the  maddening 
whirl  with  almost  the  abandon  of  the  cancan. 
Who  can  be  indifferent  to  plenty  of  room  and 
a  perfect  floor  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning 
when  you  are  conscious  that  in  five  minutes 
more  all  will  be  over  and  you  will  be  face  to 
face  with  the  cold,  pale  morn  and  reproachful 
stars  ?  There  is  a  dash  and  a  go  to  it  which 
carries  away  the  least  frivolous  and  the  least 
elastic,  so  that  they  speed  round  with  the 
verve  and  exaltation  of  twenty-one.  There 
are  just  enough  remaining,  and  they  the  cream 
of  the  dancers.  The  gayety  and  enthusiasm  of 
the  rout  recalls  from  the  supper-room  the  last 
of  the  old  stagers  and  lure  from  the  cubby-hole 
Mrs.  George  Scott  and  the  boy  of  nineteen 
who  is  her  favorite  slave  at  the  moment.  It 
is  the  fag  end  of  the  evening,  the  lees  of  the 
entertainment  by  means  of  which  another  of 
the  rose-bud  garden  of  girls  has  been  intro 
duced  to  the  great  world.  She,  dear  child, 
the  sweet  sister-in-law  of  the  house,  is  spin 
ning  radiantly  round  the  room  with  her  hand 
resting  on  the  shoulder  of  one  of  the  youths 
without  parents,  who  has  claimed  her  for  this 
last  polka  of  all.  My  feet  beat  time  and  my 
pulses  respond  to  the  well-remembered  meas- 


152  REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN 

ure,  and  suddenly  in  an  acme  of  transport  I 
pounce  upon  and  possess  myself  of  Josephine 
and  precipitate  her  into  the  madcap  whirl. 
Fast  and  faster  we  revolve,  rejoicing  in  our  ec 
stasy  and  fearful  at  every  seeming  pause  in  the 
music  that  the  end  has  come.  It  is  demoniac, 
but  glorious.  And  all  at  once,  at  the  inspira 
tion  of  Mrs.  Willoughby  Walton,  who  is  danc 
ing  madly  with  Sam  Bangs,  everyone  begins 
to  chant  with  delirious  voices  the  air  and  ca 
dence  of  the  entrancing  polka.  The  ecstasy  is 
at  its  height ;  the  madness  of  the  madcaps  is 
at  the  climax.  On  and  on,  round  and  round, 
faster  and  faster,  we  spin,  and  then  of  a  sud 
den  the  music  throbs  and  bounds,  rises  and 
screeches,  vibrates  wildly,  falls  and  ceases; 
the  melody  from  half  a  hundred  throats  ex 
pires  in  a  groan  of  regret,  and  Josephine's 
party  is  over. 


X. 


THE  lady  in  the  house  across  the  way,  the 
mother  of  the  seven  girls,  is  dead.  A  week 
ago  she  was  carried  to  the  cemetery  and  her 
husband  has  begun  life  again  in  a  sable  hat 
and  gloves.  He  walks  bravely  arm  in  arm 
with  the  eldest  of  his  tall  daughters,  with  one 
of  the  others  on  either  side.  I  turn  away 
from  the  window  with  a  lump  in  my  throat. 
My  heart  bleeds  for  him,  and  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  it  might  have  been  Josephine. 

We  look  into  each  other's  eyes,  conscious  of 
the  same  thought.  Sooner  or  later  death,  the 
inevitable,  will  come  to  rob  me  of  her  or  her 
of  me.  The  spinster  falls  asleep  and  all  is 
over.  She  is  respectfully  mourned ;  her  little 
charities  cease,  her  account  with  her  board 
ing-house  keeper  is  closed,  and  her  last  instruc 
tions  regarding  her  parrot  are  respected.  But 
when  a  wife  and  mother  dies  all  nature  sobs. 

And  yet  men  many  again  ;  men  and  women 


154  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

also.  One  of  my  great-grandfathers  took  un- 
to  himself  four  wives,  and  Josephine's  ma 
ternal  grandmother  had  three  husbands.  Jo 
sephine,  who  knows  Robert  Browning's  "Any 
Wife  to  Any  Husband"  by  rote,  pretends 
that  if  she  were  to  be  taken  away  I  would 
marry  again,  but  I  know  she  is  no  less  sure 
in  her  secret  soul  that  I  would  remain  a 
widower  to  the  end  than  she  is  sure  of  being 
faithful  herself  in  case  I  should  be  the  first 
to  go.  We  have  often  pondered  why  it  is 
that  the  one  who  is  left  behind  to  mourn  can 
so  quickly  stifle  the  old  love.  To  be  sure, 
we  have  been  told  that  in  heaven  there  will 
be  no  marrying  or  giving  in  marriage,  but,  as 
Josephine  says,  this  would  scarcely  reconcile 
the  woman  who  has  gone  before  in  the  faith  of 
an  everlasting  love  to  sharing  it  with  another. 
Nevertheless  here  is  the  example  of  her  grand 
mother  with  three  husbands  and  my  great 
grandfather  with  his  four  wives  staring  us  in 
the  face.  Are  we  to  argue  that  our  ancestors 
loved  less  truly  and  deeply  than  we  ? 

Josephine  insists  that  this  is  so,  and  I  am 
disposed  to  agree  with  her.  If,  indeed,  we  are 
to  live  again  on  the  farther  side  of  the  tomb, 
what  will  it  profit  us  unless  we  can  see  and 


A  MARRIED  MAN  155 

know  those  whom  we  have  loved  here  ?  Life 
without  consciousness  of  this  world's  associa 
tions  would  be  to  all  intents  and  purposes  an 
nihilation.  If  I  am  to  be  separated  forever 
from  Josephine  by  death,  what  boots  it  to  me 
whether  I  shall  rise  at  the  last  trump  a  winged 
angel  with  the  power  of  worship,  or  be  re 
solved  into  the  elemental  clod  from  which  my 
bones  were  fashioned  ? 

"And  yet,"  said  Josephine  to  me  one  day 
when  we  were  discussing  the  matter,  as  we 
occasionally  do,  "  supposing  I  had  died  when 
the  children  were  mere  tots,  and  you  had  been 
left  to  struggle  through  life  alone,  it  would 
really  have  been  the  most  sensible  thing,  after 
all,  for  you  to  marry  again,  if  only  to  provide 
my  darlings  with  a  mother.  It  would  have 
been  frightfully  lonely  for  you,  Fred ;  you 
would  never  have  been  able  to  stand  it.  But 
if  I  had  known  what  was  going  on  I  could 
never  have  forgiven  you — never.  I  should 
have  hated  you  and  her.  You  are  mine  for 
eternity,  and  I  wish  the  whole  of  you  or  none 
at  all." 

The  mystery  of  mysteries,  death!  In  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  we  shall  cease  to  rise,  and 
dress,  and  eat,  and  walk,  and  sleep,  and  we 


156  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

shall  be  laid  in  the  ground  where  the  bones 
of  our  ancestors  lie  wrestling  with  decay.  It 
may  be  that  one  of  us  will  be  called  to-mor 
row,  and,  like  the  wife  and  mother  across  the 
way,  leave  the  other  to  walk  alone  ;  and  it  may 
be  that  we  shall  walk  side  by  side  until  we  are 
old,  and  wrinkled,  and  bald,  and  paralysis  or 
cancer  carries  us  off  within  six  months  of  each 
other.  Yet  not  for  a  single  moment  are  we  se 
cure  from  the  touch  of  the  great  destroyer, 
who  may  to-day  divide  our  hearts  as  with  a 
shear.  The  priest  kneeling  at  the  altar  with 
his  face  to  the  sky  smiles  at  death ;  he  knows 
not  the  terror  of  the  thought  which  haunts  us 
because  we  are  so  happy. 

Many  a  time,  when  our  thoughts  have  this 
way  tended,  have  we  endeavored  to  forecast 
the  topography  of  the  future  state,  undaunted 
by  the  fact  that  the  wisest  men  and  women  of 
past  generations,  both  married  and  single, 
have  bent  their  wits  upon  the  problem  in  vain. 
Yet  here  we  encounter  some  progress,  for  even 
Josephine,  with  her  predilection  for  magnifi 
cent  effects,  has  ceased  to  contend  that  the 
immortal  spirit  is  likely  to  be  trammelled  by 
pearly  gates  and  the  manipulation  of  a  harp. 
Similarly,  we  put  aside  as  no  longer  germane 


A  MARRIED  MAN  157 

to  the  issue  the  quandary,  which  harassed  our 
ancestors,  as  to  how  the  amplitude  of  the 
heavens  will  afford  seating  capacities  for  the 
myriad  souls  whom  a  previous  condition  of 
rectitude  has  entitled  to  enter  grace  ;  an  archi 
tectural  feat  calculated  to  palsy  the  imagination 
even  of  those  enthusiasts  who  insist  that  the 
huge  population  of  India's  coral  strand,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  sparse  aborigines  of  Greenland's 
icy  mountains,  are  to  be  omitted  from  the  com 
putation.  In  spite,  too,  of  the  fulminations  of 
a  certain  portion  of  the  clergy,  we  are  unable 
to  screw  our  convictions  up  to  a  belief  in  the 
traditional  hell  which  was  alike  the  terror  and 
the  solace  of  bygone  generations.  We  are  op 
pressed  by  the  fear  neither  of  a  bottomless  pit 
nor  of  interminable  fires  of  brimstone.  A 
willingness  to  torture  seems  to  us  too  utterly 
inconsistent  with  the  attributes  of  the  divinity 
who  brings  to  pass  the  sunsets  and  inspires  the 
human  soul  with  the  sublimities  of  poetry  and 
art. 

"  It  would  be  immensely  interesting, 
though,"  said  Josephine  one  day,  "  if  we  only 
could  catch  just  a  little  glimpse  of  the  future. 
I  feel  as  you  do,  Fred,  that  the  idea  of  eternal 
torment  is  old-fashioned,  and  that  very  few 


158  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

really  believe  in  it,  whatever  they  may  say  with 
their  lips ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  I  can't  help 
feeling  that  there  will  be  some  sort  of  distinc 
tion  between  the  sheep  and  the  goats,  and  that 
people  who  have  been  horribly  wicked  will  not 
be  quite  on  a  par  with  the  righteous." 

"  I  will  admit,"  said  I,  "  that  there  was  a 
certain  gorgeous  satisfaction  for  our  ancestors 
in  the  old  hope  that  those  who  did  not  toe  the 
mark  would  be  held  up  to  a  sulphurous  blaze 
on  fiery  pitchforks,  and  I  can  almost  envy  the 
complacency  of  the  poor  suffering  souls  to-day 
who  are  being  buoyed  through  life  by  the  fer 
vent  expectation  that  the  people  who  have 
been  well  to  do  and  happy  in  the  present  world 
will  be  tormented  in  the  next  in  order  to  make 
things  even,  and  that  they  themselves  will  be 
proportionately  indemnified  for  their  terrestrial 
misery." 

"  And  the  trouble  is,  Fred,  that  we  who  be 
lieve  that  God  is  love,  and  consequently  dis 
miss  the  old  conceits  as  too  terrible,  just  as  we 
no  longer  burn  folk  as  witches  and  hang  them 
for  petty  larceny,  are  left  without  the  comfort 
of  a  definite  theory  on  the  subject  of  what  will 
happen  to  other  people,  and  are  also  unable  to 
entertain  physical  fears  on  our  own  account. 


A  MARRIED  MAN  159 

It  seems  to  me  that  there  ought  to  be  a  separ 
ate  place  in  the  other  world  for  pretty  good 
people,  those  who  are  neither  saintly  on  the 
one  hand,  nor  criminals  nor  detestably  selfish 
or  malicious  on  the  other.  It  would  have  to 
be  much  the  largest  place,  for  after  all  we  are 
most  of  us  pretty  good.  There  are  a  few 
saints  and  a  good  many  miserable  sinners,  but 
the  most  of  the  people  we  know  are  pretty 
good." 

"  And  would  you  limit  your  limbo  to  people 
we  know,  my  dear  ?  "  I  inquired.  "  Are  you 
canvassing  in  the  interest  of  a  celestial  four 
hundred?" 

"  Don't  be  blasphemous,  Fred.  It  would 
necessarily  include  the  greater  portion  of  the 
people  we  know,  because  the  greater  portion 
of  the  people  we  know  are  of  just  that  kind, 
people  whose  faults,  though  numerous  enough 
and  discouraging  enough,  as  we  are  painfully 
aware  in  our  own  cases,  don't  seem  exactly 
to  merit  everlasting  torture.  Just  think  how 
many  people  there  are  in  the  world  like  you 
and  me,  who  would  be  utterly  incapable  of 
committing  a  murder,  or  robbing  a  bank,  or 
putting  sand  in  sugar,  or  telling  downright 
lies,  or  wantonly  slandering  their  neighbors; 


160  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

people  who  have  courteous  manners,  and  tem 
pers  tolerably  under  control,  and  a  decided 
sympathy  with  culture,  and  a  disposition  to 
contribute  their  mites  to  the  cause  of  philan 
thropy  ;  people  who  would  cut  their  right 
hands  off  rather  than  dispute  a  will  because 
they  hadn't  received  what  they  expected,  or 
live  beyond  their  incomes,  or  violate  a  confi 
dence  ;  people  who  are  not  geniuses  and  will 
never  set  the  world  afire,  and  who,  though 
they  don't  understand  exactly  why  they  have 
been  created,  wish  to  live  as  long  as  possible 
and  have  not  the  least  desire  to  die,  and  who 
go  on  from  year  to  year  without  seeming  to 
accomplish  very  much,  and  yet  trying — trying 
—trying  to  understand  what  God  expects  of 
them.  For  we  do  try,  don't  we,  Fred  ?  " 

"  Indeed  you  do,  my  dear.  The  only 
trouble  is  that,  though  I  might  possibly  be 
included  in  the  category  of  the  pretty  good, 
you  would  rank  as  a  saint." 

"Which  only  shows  how  little  you  really 
know  me,"  she  answered,  with  a  sigh.  "  Un 
fortunately,  the  recording  angel  sees  me  with 
very  different  eyes,  and  knows  that  I  am  far 
from  saintly."  My  darling  bent  her  glance 
upon  space  for  a  moment  with  a  dejected  little 


A  MARRIED  MAN  161 

air,  as  though  she  were  appalled  by  the  reali 
zation  of  her  imperfections,  then  she  turned  to 
me  and  said,  "  Of  course  anyone  would  be  glad 
to  be  a  saint ;  and  undoubtedly,  if  one  were  a 
saint,  one  would  like  especially  to  be  with 
saintly  people  ;  but  the  most  depressing  thing 
of  all  in  a  certain  way  is  that  the  society  of 
the  pretty  good  people  is  so  attractive  to  me, 
that  I  am  confident  I  should  be  very  misera 
ble  if  I  were  to  be  separated  from  them  alto 
gether." 

"From  your  own  true  love,  for  instance?" 
"  Yes,  from  my  own  true  love,  alas  !  For  I 
am  forced  to  admit,  Fred,  that,  though  you  are 
adorable  at  times,  you  are  only  pretty  good." 
She  added,  as  she  threw  her  arms  around  my 
neck,  "  Only  think  how  terrible  it  would  be 
for  me  if  you  were  a  saint  and  I  so  full  of 
shortcomings !  " 

A  place  hereafter  for  pretty  good  people !  I 
have  often  recalled  since  that  notion  of  Jo 
sephine's  as  an  eminently  pertinent  suggestion. 
Lord  Bacon  well  said  that  "  he  that  hath  wife 
and  children  hath  given  hostages  to  fortune, 
for  they  are  impediments  to  great  enterprises 
either  of  virtue  or  of  mischief."  The  married 
man  who  is  chary  of  drinking  tea  from  his 
11 


162  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

saucer  and  ambitious  to  send  his  sons  to  col 
lege,  is  unapt  to  expose  himself  to  obloquy  for 
the  sake  of  his  convictions,  nor  is  his  wife  fain 
to  become  a  St.  Theresa.  Less  likely,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  either  to  stoop  to  flagrant  vices. 
As  I  have  already  specified,  I  renounced  011 
the  day  I  wedded  Josephine  even  the  hope  of 
stopping  a  runaway  horse,  and  I  am  free  to 
admit  that  I  dismissed  forever  at  the  same 
time  a  sneaking  intention  of  presuming  on  my 
hitherto  unblemished  reputation  to  become 
some  day  a  foot-pad  in  disguise.  What,  pray, 
is  there  to  prevent  Sam  Bangs,  for  instance,  I 
was  going  to  say — but  even  he  has  bowed  his 
neck  at  last  to  the  matrimonial  yoke  at  the  be 
hest  of  the  Dulcinea  with  whom  he  retired  to 
the  cubby-hole  at  Josephine's  party ;  so  let  me 
invoke  for  my  argument  the  traditional  Tom, 
Dick,  and  Harry  of  fiction,  and  ask  again  what 
is  there  to  prevent  any  of  these  single  gentle 
men  from  putting  Paris  green  in  the  porridge 
of  his  dearest  foe,  or  from  hieing  to  the  North 
Pole  in  the  cause  of  glacial  science  ?  The 
world  lies  open  before  them.  They  are  free 
to  become  hardened  villains  of  the  deepest 
dye,  or  benefactors  of  their  day  and  genera 
tion.  But  for  Josephine  and  for  me  the  path 


A  MARRIED  MAN  163 

of  life  is  straight  and  narrow.  Has  not  my 
darling,  with  her  own  fair  hands,  daily  to  but 
ter  rolls  for  the  little  ones  to  take  to  school, 
to  make  sure  that  the  buttons  which  support 
their  gallowses  are  not  lacking,  and  to  keep 
a  watchful  eye  on  the  length  of  their  hair? 
Have  I  not  in .  my  turn  to  remember  to  bring 
home  the  money  for  that  everlasting  sewing- 
woman,  whether  I  have  earned  it  or  not,  and  to 
foster  a  nostril  perpetually  on  the  scent  of 
sewer-gas  ? 

"  Where,  O  where  are  the  visions  of  morning 

Fresh  as  the  dews  of  our  prime  ? 
Gone  like  tenants  who  quit  without  warning 
Down  the  back  entry  of  time." 

"  And  have  you  ever  thought,  Fred,"  said 
Josephine  to  me  one  day,  "  that  we  suddenly 
awake  at  forty  and  realize  that  we  are  just  the 
sort  of  people  we  intended  not  to  be  ?  I  for 
one — and  I  am  very  sure  that  you  once  felt  the 
same — cherished  such  glorious  visions  and 
plans  as  a  girl  of  what  I  was  going  to  make  of 
my  life,  and  yet  here  I  am  living  along  just 
like  everybody  else,  bringing  up  children,  and 
going  to  kettledrums,  and  taking  a  spasmodic 
interest  in  the  arrangement  of  tenement-houses, 


164:  THE  REFLECTIONS  OF 

and  planning  for  winter  and  summer  clothes, 
no  better,  and  I  dare  say  no  worse,  than  the 
most  of  my  neighbors." 

"  Eppur  si  vmove"  I  murmured  encourag 
ingly. 

"  I  could  have  told  once  what  that  meant," 
said  she,  with  a  mournful  smile.  "  I  used  to 
know  quite  a  little  Italian." 

"  '  And  still  it  moves,'  the  world  moves.  It 
Avas  Galileo  who  made  the  remark  under  cir 
cumstances  even  more  depressing  than  ours,"  I 
answered.  "  There  is  a  certain  comfort  in  the 
reflection  that  we  pretty  good  people  have  very 
different  ideas  from  the  pretty  good  people 
who  lived  before  we  were  born.  As  you  said 
the  other  day,  we  no  longer  burn  witches,  and 
yet  even  the  people  who  passed  for  saints  two 
centuries  ago  took  a  hand  in  that.  Perhaps 
with  the  same  ratio  of  improvement  we  shall, 
in  another  two  hundred  years,  cease  to  be  at 
the  mercy  of  the  reporter,  the  saleslady,  and 
the  political  striker.  I  flatter  myself  that  we 
are  a  little  more  liberal,  a  little  truer-hearted, 
a  little  wiser  than  our  progenitors,  just  as  our 
children  are  likely  to  be  an  improvement  on  us 
if  pretty  good  people  are  not  swept  away  in 
the  deluge  of  democracy.  How  interesting  it 


A  MARRIED  MAN  165 

would  be  if  we  could  take  a  peep  ahead  and 
know  what  the  world  will  be  doing  two  hun 
dred  years  hence ;  or  half  a  century  even ! 
Think  of  it,  my  dear,  pretty  good  people  will 
probably  be  flying  and  doing  all  sorts  of  amaz 
ing  things  which  will  make  our  boasted  prog 
ress  seem  a  mere  puppet  show,"  I  added,  as  I 
drew  my  darling's  head  down  upon  my  shoulder 
and  held  her  closely. 

"Fancy,"  said  Josephine,  "being  able  to 
skim  like  a  bird!  It  would  be  glorious, 
wouldn't  it  ?  Perhaps  the  dear  children  will 
live  to  cross  the  ocean  on  a  genuine  air- tamer." 
She  was  silent  for  a  few  moments,  lost  in  rapt 
reflection,  then  looking  up  into  my  face  with 
wistful  tenderness,  she  whispered, 

"  I  only  hope,  Fred,  that  they  will  be  as 
happy  as  we  have  been." 


THE   END. 


OF  TOT 

UNIV7 


14  DAY  USE 

MSK 


LOAN  DEPT. 


REOTm«- 


LD  2lA-60m-2  '67 
(H241slO)476B 


r   .  General  Library 
University  of  Califortm 


U.  C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


CDSSDSESflD 


